Outdoor Retailer: Easton Snowshoes

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Easton Aluminum, long a supplier of aluminum snowshoe frames for the likes of Atlas and Tubbs...

To add a comment to Dave's post, I went to all the snowshoe manufacturers at the show (at least that I could find). One thing that struck me was that a number of the formerly top-quality snowshoe manufacturers have taken steps to keep their prices down. And, obviously, that means cutting quality. Since Perry sold Atlas to Tubbs (now both under a large corporate umbrella), Atlas has aimed more for the large market of casual snowshoers. This means that their former expedition-rated line (the original 12 series) is now more of a trail shoe. Yes, they have beefed up the crampon so it will work better on uphills. But the binding is more like the one Tubbs has been using for a while, and is the one that I have had to repair at least one each day of the snowshoe hikes I conduct for Clair Tappaan Lodge (Sierra Club lodge at Donner Pass).

Easton had an interesting exhibit that Dave didn't mention - they had a binding from most of the manufacturers that you could stick your foot in and try the adjustments, as well as make a side by side comparison of the quality. You did have to know which was which (although some are labelled prominently enough that you could just read the name from the strap or shell). Easton has put a lot of thought into the binding, and it seems to work very well (I gave one a short trial at the on-snow session). I don't like it as well as the binding on my "Perry-era" Atlas (Perry designed the original Atlas and formed the company when he was a Stanford grad student, doing his project under my next-door neighbor, a Stanford Engineering professor). However, the Easton binding will work very well for most people.

Dave mentions the plastic couplings at tip and tail on the Easton. Some of the other companies just bend the aluminum tubing, then have a plastic coupling to complete the shape, rather than welding to form a complete frame. This cuts the cost, but in practice, I see frame breaks at the other end of the shoe from the flexing and metal fatigue (aluminum tends to fatigue fairly readily, though the Easton alloys seem to stand up very well in my tent poles and my original-era Atlas snowshoes). Easton's approach looks promising to avoid the problems I am seeing in so many shoes out there.

The Easton shoes look very promising