Quote:
Originally Posted by firebug
trails are free of avalanche danger and are easily accessible from calgary.
But I would caution you to consider if you really need snowshoes. For the vast majority of trips I've been on, we would've been better off with microspikes or yaktrax instead of snowshoes
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Bolded some key points there.
Any of the avy free zones are generally super packed down (Chester and Rawson come to mind) and can be done with boots/microspikes, unless it's immediately after a huge snowfall of course.
If you're somewhere that you absolutely need snowshoes that is in the mountains, I'd be questioning if you're in an avalanche prone area, in which case you should have at a bare minimum AST1, and a beacon/shovel/probe. I've seen people out there that have no idea that they're in an avalanche runout zone, and have seen a video or two floating around where a few spring/winter hikers caused a small slide and had no idea of the huge risk involved.