New Decking Material

In the final stretch of getting the "SureFlex" ready for market  and updating it to those materials which are available in 2008 that may not have been viable in the late '80's I have a few types of decking materials to test.

Shown in the picture at right is a form of vinyl that is nylon reinforced. I decided for simplicity to just form up the deck as shown, rather than get the deck sewn as we have been doing with the Cordura decks used previously.

I love the Cordura for the it's ability to be sewn, the color combinations available, it's flexibility, and it's stretchability, making for a nice looking, taunt deck. The only real disadvantage to the Cordura is that it is more prone to cuts when encountering rock. Of course as a tester, I look for rock and other obstacles to drag the snowshoes through, so I am probably more extreme than the majority of users would be. Even with a cut, the material does not run or enlarge easily, so it is still pretty stable.

I am looking for something more resistant to cuts and a little more abrasion resistance, hence the new materials. Any material settled on must be very flexible since the cleat must be able to move independently from the frame for nice traverses, and that is one of the problems with alternative materials, many are way too stiff. If some of the new materials don't work, we can always go back to the idea of bonding Polyurethane wear strips to the Cordura decking.

As soon as we see some additional snow, I will be up testing the new decks shown here.

--Perry

First Snowshoe Hike in years

This past week I went for the first real snowshoe hike in about 20 years in the mountains. We had received our first big snow of the season here along the Wasatch Front. With one of the local ski resorts getting 46" of snow in a day of storm. Having been away from the snow and cold and the mountains for so long, naturally I was just itching to get out there and get into all of it.

Saturday was my chance to snow hike, so after doing a few things in the morning, I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Mill D North to begin my hike. A friend of mine Tammy went with me. She had a pair of her own snowshoes, having started the hobby last season and was also anxious to get out herself. We began at the trail head and went up a little while before putting on the snowshoes. It did not take long to get into the stride and feel of the snowshoes.

We had planned to go on up to Desolation Lake which was at about 9300 feet elevation and about a 2000 foot ascent from our starting point. The hike was smooth and pleasant for the most part, I'm still getting acclimated to the altitude, after all those years living just above sea level, so I had to rest a bit here and there. We had a number of nice scenic views.

Upon arrival at the Lake, which had now frozen over and was also snowcovered, we toured around the little valley, took some photos and horsed around a bit. I did a little running and jumped off a couple of snow covered bolders into the powder snow. It was getting late into the afternoon, and the sun was already shading the lake so we hiked up above the lake into the sun and packed an area so we could sit down and cook some lunch. Tammy got out her MSR stove and we melted a snow/water mixture and cooked up some backpack lasagne, very delicious, and warming.

As we finished eating the sun was already going down on us and a cold fog was flowing toward the lake. The trek down the mountains to the truck was nice, with several nice sunset vistas. We kept the snowshoes on all the way to the bottom, as the snow that was soft near the bottom on the way up had frozen and was slippery, the cleats on the snowshoes added good stability. All in all a very fun hike. See more photos on picassaweb.google.com/pdpeacock.

Snowshoeing for fun

When you think about snowshoeing, you think of Canadians, Fur Trappers, Hunters, Explorers, much of which can seem a lot like work. That's why we coined the phrase "snowhiking" because we like to think of it simply as hiking, only in the snow. It's fun because so often you encounter some beautiful scenery as well as get some exercise in an enjoyable way.

We have always sought to make snowshoes easy to use, and comfortable in as many situations as possible. I have included a couple of photos here, the first one is on a week long snowhiking/camping trip in the High Uintas, in this one I'm crossing a stream in an area where it wasn't frozen; the second photo is beautiful I think, it was after a snow storm that literally frosted the trees all around with snow, you can see my tracks coming up the middle.

Snowhiking is a fun quiet way to get away from all the noise and hustle of everyday life, try it this winter.

The Original Concept

The idea for the SureFlex snowshoe was born out of a need for a frame that wouldn't break all the time as others did. We used to like to go into the mountains on snowshoes and jump off of things into the deep powder snow, we snapped or bent so many shoes that way. We had 2 choices go to a heavier frame or make the frame flex. We chose the flexing option, the frame is sort of like spring steel, it bends and then returns to its original shape, only the frame is made out of aluminum. Other benefits are better cleat contact on uneven hard crusty surfaces and longitudinal flex for the best traversing ability of any snowshoe on the market. I'll talk more on that later on.

Sherm became involved when as a good friend and neighbor he was driving his jeep home and saw my flashlight out in the field behind my house at 9 or 10pm. He pulled in and came out to investigate. I was trying to see if the frame was flexing the way I wanted it to, but couldn't walk and do that at the same time, so Sherm gets down crawling around in the snow with the flashlight watching the flexing action. We were partners from then on.

Twenty years in the making

More than 20 years ago Sherm and I started this snowshoe thing, it was a blast creating something new and different, and just as things were really starting to pop, I move to the East coast. Even though we both thought about it a lot and worked on it as we could, the project mostly languished, that is till now. I am back in snow country again, awaiting some of the greatest powder snow on earth to trek through with what are destined to become the best snowshoes on earth. Yes Sherm and I have reunited and the creative juices are really flowing again, taking off where we left off, making the last few alterations. I hope you will share our excitement as the story unfolds on the re-launch of SureFlex Sports and some of the most fun and dynamic snowshoes in the history of mankind...at least as far as current research shows :)