If you’ve read my post on snowshoeing in Philadelphia, you know that the first pair of snow shoes I ever purchased was the Atlas 930 snowshoe. This means that my Atlas 930 snowshoe review will be coming from a complete beginner.
If you’re also looking to purchase your first pair of snowshoes, this may be a good review for you because you’ll get to see how these snow shoes worked from the perspective of someone who is new to snowshoeing and new to this particular snowshoe as well.
What I learned from my first experience snow shoeing is that it really is not very hard to learn. You’re basically just walking with very large and heavy shoes.
Ease of Use
The Atlas 930 snowshoes went on very easily and they were very intuitive to put on. You basically just put your feet in them, tighten the straps and begin walking.
I only had to tighten the snowshoes once and they were fine for the rest of my journey. When I was done walking, the straps came off easily and although I was too hot to be wearing gloves at this point, I think I could have easily unstrapped them with a nice warm pair of winter gloves on.
Performance
Atlas snowshoes are built with a tapered tail which is supposed to help keep snow from coming back up with you while you walk. I don’t know if shoes without this tapering face much of a problem with this, but I know it wasn’t a problem for me with these shoes.
The one real difference between hiking and snowshoeing is that snowshoeing is much more physically demanding. Three hours of hiking up and down trails in my snowshoes with only a small backpack on tired me out more than a full day of regular hiking would have.
These shoes are about 4 pounds 8 ounces which I’ve read is a bit on the heavy side for snow shoes. This being said, I like the extra workout that I think they provide, so I’m not too worried about the weight.
If I were to go snowshoe racing one day however, I’d probably opt for a lighter shoe. Of course the Atlas 930 snowshoe is a trail shoe, so you really can’t expect them to be as light as a racing shoe would be anyway.
Take Away
As a beginner, I didn’t have any trouble wearing or using these snowshoes and I wouldn’t hesitate to tell anyone else to give the Atlas snowshoe brand a try.
