When you are a bear you realize on outdoor adventures there are things that you just can’t do because of weight constraints. Luckily doing the snow shoe tour is not one of them.

The Adventure Group does rentals of snow shoes and boots. These are the modern snow shoes which are smaller than your traditional wooden ones. They also have grips on them for ice, so you can dig your foot in if you get stuck. Your guide helps you get all set up with the gear and you can ask for walking poles if you are worried you might have issues. Unlike the zip line and snowmobile tours, the snow shoeing tour we went on happened on Blackcomb Mountain. So, once we had our gear, we headed up on the gondola to midpoint.

Just off to the side of the ski slopes, we walked through the forest away from everyone skiing and snowboarding. The guide showed us how to use the snow shoes, along with explaining things about the area around Whistler. Unless you ski, you don’t realize how much snow you are walking on top of. You had to be careful around what you thought were short trees therefore, as they could actually be tall trees with several meters of snow covering the base. Get too close and you might fall into a hole that had been disguised by large branches holding up the snow. As we are walking, we are also shown animal tracks and a creek fed with melted snow.

Walking with snow shoes was easy once you got used to walking like a duck; you do need to avoid bumping the shoes into one another. With how nice the weather was, plus the view, it’s something that I would do again. It is not a hard work out, more like a good walk. Since Rob and Justin were with me for the tour, it was great to be able to have conversation making it great for a group outing.

It was nice to be on the slopes away from the skiers and snowboarder in a place where you feel that you don’t need to worry about being run over while enjoying the scenery. Since it was all our first time doing snow shoeing, it really did help having a guide as since we could have gotten lost or not known the safe paths to go. If you don’t ski or snowboard, and enjoy going for hikes, this is a perfect outdoor activity for you.

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Contributor Steve Polyak |

Locale British Columbia | Whistler |

Topic Ski and Snowboard | Travel | Whistler Pride |

Photo Gallery Travel |Whistler |