Best Snowshoe Bindings: Reviews by OutdoorEquipment.com

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Finding the right snowshoe bindings is the 1st step to an adventurous snowshoeing season. Learn about various snowshoe bindings & discover the best for you!

Snowshoeing is rapidly becoming a winter sport favorite, even outgrowing skiing and snowboarding in certain regions.

There are a number of reasons why snowshoeing is becoming so popular these days. For one, it’s a fairly inexpensive sport. All you have to buy are the snowshoes, which mostly just consist of frames, decks, and bindings. The lowest-end snowshoes will cost you about $100, and the high end will only be around $300. And that’s it. There are no other expenses.

Another reason the sport is so popular is that anyone can do it. And they can do it anywhere! If you have a pair of snowshoes with comfortable snowshoe bindings, you can take them anywhere there’s snow. The best places are usually found at ski resorts, national parks, mountain lodges, and even off-season golf courses. Wherever there’s deep powder that would be impossible to walk across otherwise, you can use snowshoes to tread over easily.

As great as snowshoes are, though, they would be fairly useless without the bindings that work with them. As with skis and snowboards, snowshoe bindings are meant to keep your feet attached to the product. There are a few different types of snowshoe bindings, but not nearly as many varieties as there are with snowboard bindings.

Also like with skis and snowboards, the bindings of your snowshoes are a very important part of this sport. If they don’t fit right or aren’t the right design for your particular kind of snowshoeing, then you won’t have a great time on the mountain.

And that would be unfortunate, because snowshoeing provides some truly fantastic adventures.

What Are Snowshoe Bindings?

As mentioned above, snowshoe bindings are the systems by which your feet stay attached to the frames and decks. They can come in a variety–albeit a smallish variety–of styles and materials, and at least two different modern construction designs, but the main point of their use is common throughout: to keep your snowshoes firmly on your feet.

Obviously, no two companies produce the same two snowshoe bindings, but the basic designs generally fall into two separate categories:

• Fixed rotation snowshoe bindings
• Free rotation snowshoe bindings

Fixed rotation snowshoe bindings are designed with rubber or neoprene bands that keep the back end of your shoes coming up with every step you take. In essence, these kinds of shoes are attached to your heels as well as your toes, making them great for deep snow, moving around obstacles, and backing up when necessary.

Free rotation allows a bit more, well, freedom in your snowshoeing motion. These types of bindings work with a crossbar to allow the shoes to pivot as you step. Essentially, think of these ones as being attached to your toes, but not your heels–this is an oversimplified way of thinking about it, we know, but it will help you get the picture. These are great for kicking off snow as you walk and they allow you to walk with a much more natural gait, but they are difficult to maneuver around obstacles or while stepping backwards.

There are also native bindings, snowshoe designs used by people for centuries. These are, more or less, fantastic devices that use natural materials to create a wonderfully comfortable and amazingly efficient pair of snowshoes. The frames and decking are usually made from wood and oil-soaked manila rope. These native bindings are made in such a way as to provide a very simple way to get out of them–just a twist of the foot–making them particularly safe.

But what types of snowshoe bindings should you get?

That’s a great question, but before we answer it, you need to answer a different question first: what kind of snowshoeing do you want to do? Believe it or not, there are a number of activities associated with snowshoeing, including:

• Mountain Hiking
• Trail Walking
• Backcountry Exploring
• Speed Traveling
• Snow Running

Depending on what activity you want to do, you’ll find a pair of snowshoe bindings that are made just for you. For instance, mountain hiking will probably require you to wear big leather boots while snow running permits you to wear your cross-trainers, so each of them has to have bindings built to handle different types of shoes.

The Best Snowshoe Bindings

If you’ve decided that you want to join the exciting world of snowshoeing, then you may need a hand trying to figure out the place to go for your frames, decking, and particularly your bindings.

Fortunately, there are a great many companies who provide excellent snowshoe bindings that will last your for years and years. To give you a place to start on your hunt, here’s a peek at three of the best.

• Faber Snowshoes — One of Quebec, Canada’s oldest winter sports companies–or perhaps the oldest, period–Faber has been in operation since 1870, manufacturing snowshoes and bindings from the very beginning. But this company is more than just seasoned, it’s also celebrated and respected in the community for making some of the best snowshoeing products in the world.

• Redfeather Snowshoes — Responsible for creating the very first ratchet binding system, this Wisconsin-based company, born in 1988, has remained on the cutting edge of snowshoe binding innovation from its inception. These are truly fantastic and advanced systems.

• Crescent Moon Snowshoes — This family-owned, Boulder, Colorado-based company creates some of the best snowshoes and snowshoe bindings by hand. Choose from either the Gold Series or the Silver Series of bindings–either way you’re getting some of the best in the world.

Some other great companies to check out when you’re looking for your next system of snowshoe bindings are MSR Snowshoes, Atlas Snowshoes, and Yukon Charlie’s Snowshoes.

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