Guided Snowshoeing holidays – Snowshoeing Tour – Snow Walking

Snowshoeing holidays are the perfect getaway to enjoy the magnificent winter scenery and tranquil landscapes of the mountains at your own pace. Accessible to anybody with a reasonable level of fitness, snowshoeing tours are less technical than skiing, it is basically like snow walking, and are the ideal way to travel the spectacular wildernesses of the French Alps, Swiss Alps, Austrian Alps or Italian Dolomites.

On all of our snowshoeing holidays we provide the equipment you need (modern snowshoes & poles) and work with local guides who are familiar with the area and the weather conditions.

Our ideal snowshoe destinations are all areas where we have walked the snowy trails and forests ourselves, choosing the itineraries we love. Accommodation is in family run hotels and at mealtimes we always take the opportunity to sample local cuisine!

Are snowshoeing holidays for me?
Snowshoeing tour are for people who are active, with some previous experience of walking or hiking in the mountains. No previous snowshoeing experience is necessary as the technique is accessible to anyone who has this level of fitness. See you in the snow !

Some practical tips to make your snowshoeing holidays successful.

Often people think snowshoeing is physically tiring and harder than hiking. In reality the challenge can be adapted to the difficulty you want. However generally speaking on our snowshoeing holidays the distance and and climbing is around 20 to 30 % less than a walk in the summer to make it equivalent difficulty.
One particularity of snow walking is it depends very much on the local weather conditions such as the wind, the snow type (light and powdery, compacted, spring snow or wet snow). So on our snowshoeing tours more than on our hiking tours, the plan requires quite often some adaptation during the course of the trip.

In terms of equipment you need nothing else than the hiking gear you would use at home in winter. Waterproofs, gaiters, hat and gloves. The only particularity on snow walking is to bring good pair of gloves, warm socks and also goggles when the weather is windy can be useful. You boots should be good hiking boots, waterproof and they will adapt nicely on our snowshoes we will provide.
The bas approach is definitely to use many layers, as during the day you will get from warm to cold quickly.

The snow walking technique is basically the same as walking, so if you can walk you can snowshoe!

The snowshoes we use are the so called beaver tail shape snowshoes. They are light, less than 1kg (often around 850 gram) and easy to manoeuvre. The most common make of snowshoes is TSl. 
Also the snowshoe are designed in a way you don’t need to walk differently than usual, in particular you don’t necessary need to have your feet wider apart.

The accommodations we use are usually chalets or nice hotels in quiet skit resort or mountain village. We try to give you the opportunity to experience the atmosphere of the alpine village in winter a sort of “apres snowshoe” !  A the same time we don’t pick locations too close to large ski resort so you can appreciate the environment more.

Airports can be Turin (Queyras), Geneva (Gran Paradiso, Chamonix), Grenoble, Venice (Dolomites),
We always send someone for our team to welcome you are airport, if possible your guide, and organise private transfers. We try to keep the trips not far from the airports (if possible less than 2 hours drive), when possible.

For more details, you can check our post on snowshoeing holidays.