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Snowshoes?

Started by gman98, March 23, 2015, 06:50:48 AM

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gman98

Hello guys.  I am new to the forum and this is my first time posting but I figured I would come up with a question I have had for a while.  I am looking to get a new pair of snowshoes for next winter.  These will mainly be used for beaver trapping.  I would prefer to get a pair of traditional snowshoes.  What would you guys reccomend for northern Maine terrain?

Thanks, Alex
Forest technician and part time equipment operator.  Looking to get set up with some logging equipment of my own.

1270d

Is there a particular reason you want traditional?   Good aluminum shoes are very nice.

petefrom bearswamp

My son, a forester with NYSDEC uses traditional.
His younger contemporaries use the modern versions.
They had more issues with these newer shoes in deep snow than my son.
Read sinking in past their knees.
I used traditional Michigan pattern for 25 yrs as a consulting forester, wore one pair out, the second reposes on the wall of my shop, half worn out, are covered with dust and will remain there .
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

1270d

Traditional style are available in larger sizes as well?   
Modern bindings would make traditional wooden shoes nice.

I switched to aluminum frames after breaking a couple pairs piece cutting.   One little nick on the toe of the shoe and they would split.  The cleats on the aluminum is nice for log walking too.

Stephen Alford

 I still use traditional as that is what I have. Have moved away from leather and like working with nylon. You all probably do this but thought I might mention  how well a needle nose sodering iron works. When it burns the hole in the nylon it seals the edge of the hole. Ribbits with washers hold really well.

 

Oh and try to stay off vechicles......  :D

 
logon

Hilltop366

A friend of mine just got a pair of Newfoundland snowshoes, I haven't seen them yet but the are highly recommended. I do have a set of harnesses made like his on my wood bear-paws and like them. The video link is three parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQahP2rFpms

Jeff

Member @Reddog 's father builds traditional snowshoes, not heard lately if he still is, but its worth a look. Reddog's dad is a world class dogteam sled builder.

http://www.risdonrigs.com/
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

ga jones

Tubbs is what I would recommend. modern shoes are easier to carry,store,faster bindings and last longer. I will sacrifice sinking a little more for the maneuverability every time. Just my opinion though
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ESFted

Construction aside, what type you get kinda depends on whether you are in open country or heavily wooded forest.  Longer types don't maneuver well in the woods, that's where I prefer bear paws.
S.U.N.Y. College of Environmental Science and Forestry '65
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DeerMeadowFarm

Hilltop, do you know where your buddy ordered them from? I tried the link at the end of the videos you posted (cool link BTW!) and it didn't work for me.

I use traditional ones with rubber bindings similar to the ones Jack has that I made myself patterned after a pair I bought at a Great Canadian store (they sold canoes and snowshoes). I have a pair of 1950's Army surplus that I use the most. A pair os Ojibwa's that I made from a kit, and a pair of LL Bean Bear Paws that I bought at a yard sale for $20. My 11 year old daughter uses those.

Reddog

Quote from: Jeff on March 23, 2015, 04:12:31 PM
Member @Reddog 's father builds traditional snowshoes, not heard lately if he still is, but its worth a look. Reddog's dad is a world class dogteam sled builder.

http://www.risdonrigs.com/

Yes he still does.
Many sizes to chose from.
Give him a call if you want to ask any questions.

Hilltop366

Quote from: DeerMeadowFarm on March 23, 2015, 04:51:00 PM
Hilltop, do you know where your buddy ordered them from? I tried the link at the end of the videos you posted (cool link BTW!) and it didn't work for me.

Not sure were he ordered them from, if you search "Newfoundland snowshoe" you will come up with some results.

sprucebunny

We had different snow this winter and even the newer snowshoes with mostly fabric deck were sinking in a lot ! I think it has to do with the snowflakes being round ???

 

I mostly use the Fabers since they withstand a chainsaw nick much better and have the better bindings. You can see that the fabric deck has a couple of -almost- punctures.
The tips have several chain nicks. Fun in the woods  8) 8)
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

North River Energy

I don't snowshoe much, but when I need to, I use an old pair of MSR 'Denali Ascent'.
http://www.moontrail.com/msr-denali-ascent.php
Obviously not traditional, but they are very nimble, provide decent flotation (@ +-190lbs), and have excellent traction.

What do you use presently, and what don't you like about them?

1270d

Sherpa 9x36   Looks like the company went out of business some years ago, but there is a Canadian forestry/mining supply that makes almost identical shoes.  IRL supplies I think it is.  Had Iverson brand traditionals. 


Mark Wentzell

I've always used GV snowshoes made in Quebec. Their snow trail line is a good style for the woods.

Alexanderthelate

I don't know if Jack Carey is still operating- that episode of L&S is ten years old, but I can vouch for the quality of his work. I've got two pairs of his shoes that are both older then me, and are is perfect condition, except one pair has had the bindings replaced (an accident with an axe, not the construction).

I would avoid the aluminum and plastic shoes like the plague. I had a nasty accident once with a set, they were like skates on the crusty snow.

Clark

Last winter was pretty brutal here. I had just finished making my own pair of snowshoes. The basic Michigan pattern is what I used. The more square inches you can include inside the frame, the more flotation you will have. I've never bought the argument that more maneuverability was worth sacrificing the size of the shoe. I've yet to put on a pair of snowshoes that I would consider "maneuverable". If you want to float on the snow you've got to put large, clunky things on your feet and maneuverability does not fit into this equation.

If I were you I would suggest finding an old pair of Lunds. If you can't then the first thing I look for is how much upturn does the toe have. The more the better. The old Lunds will have 6-10" of upturn. It really helps prevent the toe from catching more snow or crusty snow that will send you sprawling. If the webbing looks beat up then talk the seller down and get 'em for the best price you can. Buy the book "Building Snowshoes & Snowshoe Furniture" by Gil Gilpatrick. It has excellent instructions on how to lace a pair of snowshoes. Relace the old pair you bought with nylon webbing and you'll have a pair of shoes that will last decades and keep you on top of the snow.

Clark
SAF Certified Forester

DeerMeadowFarm

Good comments Clark. My military surplus ones that I use the most have a very large upturn. The Ojibway style I made myself from a kit also has a large upturn. I'm 230 at winter weight and I need all the flotation I can get and you are right; flotation = big foot print! I do have Gil's book as well as his canoe book; great guy!

scouter Joe

I also have a pair of Jack Carey's snowshoes and they are my favourites . Easy to get around in and stand up very well . I got them about 10 years ago and the cord is starting to get frayed quite bad . Jack was in his mid 60s when I got the shoes and I wasn't sure if he is still making them . I called him up this morning and his wife told me that Jack had a stroke about 3 years ago and hasn't made any since . I did get to talk to him and he said he is getting better and hopes to get back at making them again . He did take my name number and address but said it might be a while before he could get me another pair . Hope it all goes well for him and he can get back to making snowshoes again . scouter Joe

SwampDonkey

I use Fabres as well, but with ash frames and composite web area. I find aluminum cracks and breaks too easy, ash frames last forever. The one thing though is crusty snow chews up nylon bindings. ;D However, I have never busted the shoes and have used them for many winters. Have gone through 3 sets of nylon straps though. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

gman98

Thank you guys for your help.  What patterns do you find most useful in the woods?  Have any of you tried the GV wooden snowshoes?

Thanks, Alex
Forest technician and part time equipment operator.  Looking to get set up with some logging equipment of my own.

Reddog

10x56 Alaskans are a very popular shoe, short of rabbit hunting in willow brush do fine for most other wooded  hikes.
If your a smaller person, 9 or 10 x46 is a good choice.

I and a lot of others prefer shoes that have a tail. They track/balance better than the bear paws in deep fluff.

BHC

Beaver trapping is hard on shoes, i have gone to surplus army ones, and on my second pair in 10 years, if i doing much snowshoeing, otherwise i have a pair of wooden bear paw that travel better on my snow-sled. I have broken more than my share of snow shoes trapping beaver. If you go wooden go with thicker bows, there a few different snowshoe makers here in Maine, that can make them with heavier wood for you, stay away from leather, as it going to get wet and then be loose. realize if your trapping beaver, and packing them back out the extra weight. Get bindings that you can twist your feet out of easily, if you trap beaver enough your going to go through the ice, and your going to need to get them off your feet in a hurry. There is no 1 best pair for the whole season and different snow conditions, and terrain one stop you may be able to walk right up the ice some times without snowshoes, the next you go down through a fir thicket, and across a alder swamp.  The best ones you drive the snow-sled to cut the holes in the ice with a chainsaw and have enough of a trail to pull a dogsled along.
84 C5D Tree Farmer, 78 S8 International, Thompson Band Mill, M14 Foyley Belsaw

OntarioAl

Folks
I like traditional wooden snowshoes but for daily work in the boreal forest they would not last (I am a swelt 250 lbs + on snow shoes). I use the surplus snowshoes and for me they last just like a Timex watch (takes a licking and keeps on ticking) and I never go snowshoeing without a pair of cross country ski poles. The bindings are a new style they work great how long they last only time will tell
Al


 
Al Raman

Corley5

I've used Michigans and Bear Paws and prefer the Michigan style.  I've got a couple pair of the military surplus ones and they're my favorite.  I'd rather see them hanging on the wall in the garage than attached to my feet.  I prefer the rubber bindings.  They're easier to get on and off for me anyway.  I used to have a pattern around somewhere to cut them out of inner tubes.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

sprucebunny

Where I go in the woods, there are too many small sticks that would go thru those military ones or anything but a no-holes fabric deck. More than once I've been upside down or wallowing around in the snow cursing at small trees/branches that had stuck thru a hole and wouldn't come out.

Unfortunately, I can't find another pair of the Fabers I have.
Got some used 'Optima' ones from fleabay... we'll see how those are.
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

SwampDonkey

Yeah, mines not web like you would think with cord or gut, it's hard plastic with cleats on the bottoms for crust. But there are a few round holes bunched into it. The odd stick will grab a hole now and then, but most of the time there is enough snow when I'm shoeing that I usually don't get snagged. Also my land hasn't a lot of windfalls and snags because I have thinned the ground out the last few years with the trash all rotted into the ground by now.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

enigmaT120

I have a pair of bear-paw type which work OK but I generally prefer my cross country skis.  On the rare years we get enough snow to bother with either.

That's just to get around in the woods and logging roads; I don't try to do any work in the woods in the snow.
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

BHC

the surplus ones i use have cable same as in the picture, they hold up well to the snags, thinking about most of the wooden shoes i have broken it been the tail that breaks stepping over a log you don't see in the snow, with just the tail supported, they break at the mortise and tendon on the back bar. Most of the time when i am using them it is to trap beaver, and in a place i can't get my snow sled through,- fir or alder thickets, there is always a bunch of cut down trees around these flowages. Occasionally i had to use them to break a trail for the snow sled as well. Or to shovel snow away from the ice to set or tend beaver traps. I don't tend to use them just to go for a walk, or in open area's or good trails where i can run a snow sled, if i was i would look at some of the long narrow pickerel type.
84 C5D Tree Farmer, 78 S8 International, Thompson Band Mill, M14 Foyley Belsaw

SwampDonkey

I use mine mostly on trails or places I thinned out, which is almost the same because you create corridors more or less. But they do brush up in places. Going tomorrow on mine to do some more pruning while everything freezes up for a spell. Not suppose to get above freezing here tomorrow.

Do you trap the problem beavers BHC? That's about all that get trapped here now. Fur isn't worth much.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

OntarioAl

BHC
Exactly as you say except I am flagging road line, cut blocks or no cut areas, just have to power on through no deviating from the line being run. The surplus ones are for work only if I am walking trails or in open country I prefer the longer narrow ones.
sprucebunny
Been there done that turned the air several shades of blue rolling around in the snow, that was until I started to use cross country ski poles. Tumbles in the snow are past history I will not snowshoe without them ever again.
Al
Al Raman

BHC

swamp donkey I trap problem beavers, and others depending on where they are, and how close i am going to them, i run a set of hunting camps for bear and deer in the fall, so i depend on a lot of company rds even if the company  not using them, so try to keep the beaver numbers as low as i can, in nov i trap coyotes for the state, and then in Dec i trap marten and fisher, if i can off a snowsled, and will target all the beaver that i go near. 2 years ago i flew over in a plane and marked 95 houses with a GPS withen a 20 mile of my house, if the price had stayed up i would have done well, they are ave $20 that's ok if it open water out of a truck= less work  but you would have to pick your time late winter when they take bait good and ice is not building for winter trapping/ under ice to pay, compare what you can make cutting pulp to what your going to make trapping beaver, and i cut pulp last 2 winters. I do know 4 or 5 guys who are catching 200+ beaver each and every year, and a couple of them pushing 500 every year, for the fur market there is no lack of beaver here in Maine. I bet if it was figured out there would be millions of dollars lost in roads and flooded/killed timber here every year.
84 C5D Tree Farmer, 78 S8 International, Thompson Band Mill, M14 Foyley Belsaw

sprucebunny

Al, my chainsaw would be jealous and depressed if I took some ski poles  :D
Had a stick stuck so bad today that I had to take the snowshoe off to disentangle everything.

BHC, ya beavers have wrecked a bunch of trees on my land but now they have eaten themselves out of a spot and moved on. No hardwood left within a couple hundred feet radius of their huts. About 20 acres of cedar flooded.
Sounds like you stay busy  8)
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

SwampDonkey

Quote from: BHC on March 31, 2015, 09:15:15 PM
I bet if it was figured out there would be millions of dollars lost in roads and flooded/killed timber here every year.

I hear ya. I thin small trees with a brush saw when there's no snow and them beaver's flood out a lot of 'silviculture' roads for sure. On dad's farm, I took the GPS in the winter time on snow shoes and measured 25 acres of flooded land the beavers had dammed up. That was on a 450 acre block of land. Those areas were nice cedar stands one time. At 50-60 cord an acre, that's big loss. Of course the timber had been cut before hand. But old beaver ponds, even if the beavers leave and the dam breaks, take a long time to heal up and grow trees again.  And they (beaver) don't only cut aspen and hardwood, but planted spruce trees make dam building material even if they aren't good eat'n. ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

petefrom bearswamp

I think I may be the oldest fart posting  Here. I started in 1962 when i went to work for the NYS Conservation department here in NY
We first were issued WWII surplus bear paw shoes with rawhide webs and leather bindings.
Flat profile and caught in deep snow when marking trees for thinning as we were looking up all the time.
I was only 24 then so falling wasn't a big deal.
A couple of years later we graduated to shoes made by Floyd Westover in Gloversville NY in Michigan pattern with neoprene webbing and neoprene bindings.
What a difference.
I wish I had a nickel for every mile i have logged on these tennis rackets.
I have used them since, 3 pairs, but haven't been on a pair in about 9 yrs since retiring from consulting forestry.
My newest pair rest in my shop on a nail as i think I posted before, CRS setting in.
IMO style and manufacture is likened to the Chevy/GMC/ Ford/ ram/ tundra debate.
Glad the snow is gone here.



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57 acres of woodland

johnjbc

I still have a pair of the Neoprene Snowshoes like yours. Did a lot of Snowshoe Rabbit hunting when I lived up there. Started out with a borrowed pair of Bear Paws then bought a pair like yours. They sure were easier to walk in. Haven't had to use them since I moved out of the Great White North  :D
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