Went for a quick daytime jaunt up French Cabin Road to test out my new French-made snowshoes, the Symbioz Hyperflex Adjust by TSL Outdoor. They’ve got a really nice combination of features:
- Easy on/off and adjustment thanks to Boa adjustment for the toes and a ratcheting strap around the rear of the boot. I still have nightmares about adjusting and securing the tails of the Voile straps on my old MSR snowshoes. Never again!
- Flexible platform. That’s right, these snowshoes bend to conform to the terrain, allegedly to increase traction. They didn’t feel flimsy underneath me and I only noticed them bending if I was actively watching them while going up something steep.
- Tapered hourglass shape. Unlike MSRs both old and new which feature an exceedingly blocky shape, the Symbioz are tapered to prevent them from colliding. After about three and a half miles I only recall them banging into each other twice. I was also able to walk much more normally versus the wider gait typically associated with snowshoes. In other words, walking in the TSLs felt natural and comfortable.
- The heel riser for steep ascents is attached to the boot plate, not the frame of the snowshoe itself. This means that you can just lift up your foot and engage or disengage it with your hand. On showshoes where the riser it attached to the frame this is tricky because the hinged boot plate means that the frame of the showshoe stays hanging downwards whenever you lift your foot. It’s a minor improvement but a very welcome one.
Gear
What Worked
- Symbioz snowshoes were a big hit. Super fun and comfortable, not at all like I remember snowshoes from 10 years ago. Great for summiting knobs of rock covered in fresh deep powder.
What Didn’t
- Prana Stretch Zion pants were great but the bottoms were a bit loose and they picked up a tear in addition to getting wet. Not the pants fault, of course, since I didn’t have any gaiters. They’re next on my list. I also got pretty warm, so I’m thinking I’ll switch to a shorts-and-leggings setup.
- Montbell Wickron long-sleeve shirt paired with the Massdrop Veil wind shirt were far too warm once I got going but the Montbell by itself wasn’t doing a good job of wicking moisture because of the loose fit. I’m thinking that a skin-tight baselayer is the way to go. Luckily my Stoic baselayer shirt should be here sometime this week.
- My Columbia liner gloves since I left them at the cabin. Sad face. I put my hands into snow several times, mostly when I lost my balance on steep uphills in fresh snow.
What’s Next
- Pick up a pair of gaiters. After some light research I’ve settled on the MLD Superlight Gaiters.
- Swap out the Prana Stretch Zion pants for Prana Stretch Zion shorts, wear them over Smartwool 150 leggings.
- Replace Montbell button-down shirt with just the Stoic long-sleeve baselayer.
- My Tusko Products extra-large cleaning gloves were delivered this weekend and they layer perfectly over my Columbia liner gloves. This should allow me to handle snow or poles (for skiing) without having to worry about wet or cold hands.
- Test out the snowshoes with my Salomon XA Pro 3D trail runners.
- Figure out a sock combination that will work with the trail runners. Tall wool over short synthetic liner? Thin liner over Drymax? Hmm…
Route
Gaia route link:
Unfortunately Gaia crapped out and decided to log the track as if it was in low-power mode (meaning, only when I was actively watching the screen) so I had to recreate it (poorly) from memory.
The other thing I wanted to figure out on this trip were rough estimates for speed and elevation gain on snowshoes to assist future trip planning. I was only out for about three hours so that comes to about 1.2 miles per hour and about 350 feet of gain per hour. Those aren’t great numbers but snowshoes aren’t known for being speedy. They’re also rough estimates because I forgot to stop tracking when I got back to the trailhead.
Photography
SmugMug album:
https://turigrinos.smugmug.com/Adventures/2020/French-Cabin-Road
For a single exposure you have to overexpose by about one stop in order to get snow to turn out white instead of gray. For HDR you have to do the same thing but only after you’ve merged the photos. Unfortunately this seems to also blow out the sky a bit so I’m still figuring out the best way to handle this. A top-down gradient that cuts either exposure or highlights seems to do the trick without overly dulling the tips of remote peaks.
In any case, this one is actually my favorite:
This is a shot of the Cle Elum River from the French Cabin Road bridge. I’m a sucker for symmetry and I also love the texture of the water and the glow as the river approaches the horizon. Cropping out a lot of barren sky and bumping up the color of the trees and their reflections really improved the framing of the image as well.