Eric's Beijing Diary

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I haven't been on snowshoes since I was a Boy Scout in Minnesota. They are a little clumsy, but they really make deep snow a lot easier to deal with. Snowshoes have changed a little over the years. The ones we wore today were smaller than the traditional Michigan snowshoes I used as a Boy Scout, but easier to walk in. Jason took us to a park in Washington State just north of Portland. Actually, most of the trail we navigated had been traveled. We probably could have done it with just a good pair of boots. But it's really nice to have snowshoes, because if you step of the trail or something, you stay on top. I wish I would have had a pair of these when I was a kid growing up in the snow country of Northern Japan. So many times I would walk through deep snow and sink all the way to my hips. The reason, of course, is because soft snow is mostly air. We had skis when I was a kid, so we did a lot of cross country stuff, but skis are not always the best solution for that, especially if you come to some steep downhill areas through the woods. As we were coming back down the trail this afternoon, we met a guy on cross coutry skis who had a pair of snowshoes on his back. That's the way to go. Maybe. Skiing with snowshoes on your back would not be that much of a burden. But snowshoeing with skiis on your back might be a bit awkward. I'm pretty sure there are lots of guys like him around these parts, though, because when we rented the snowshoes, there seemed to be lots of that kind of gear being rented.