Poles for snowshoeing, and the part that matters more than the pole

The basket is the product

A pole holds you up by pushing against the ground. In soft snow there is no ground, so what holds you up is the disc near the tip - the basket - spreading the load across enough surface area to stop the pole sinking.

Most trekking poles ship with a small summer basket, roughly the size of a coin, designed to stop the tip catching in mud and rock. In snowshoe conditions that basket sinks to the grip and the pole does absolutely nothing. People conclude poles do not help and leave them in the car.

A snow basket is several times the diameter. Fitting them is usually a twist-off, twist-on job that takes a minute, and it converts a useless pole into a genuinely useful one. If you take one thing from this page, it is that the baskets are the purchase and the poles are the delivery mechanism.

Do you need poles at all?

On a flat, packed, well-used trail, honestly no. Snowshoeing on hard-packed snow is walking, and you do not use poles to walk.

They earn their place in four situations, and all four are common:

• Any gradient. Uphill they let your arms contribute; downhill they take load off knees that are absorbing every step on an unstable surface.
• Deep or unbroken snow. Balance on a surface that gives way unpredictably is a genuine problem, and two more contact points solve it.
• Carrying weight. A pack or a child changes your balance, and it also changes what size snowshoe you need.
• Traverses. Walking across a slope rather than up it is where snowshoes feel least secure, and a pole on the uphill side helps a lot.

This is the case for adjustable

Elsewhere on this site the argument runs the other way - for resort skiing, fixed poles are usually the better buy. Snowshoeing reverses it, because you genuinely want two different lengths on the same outing.

That last row is the one experienced walkers do and everyone else ignores, and it is genuinely worth doing on a long traverse. Lever locks are what make any of this realistic, because you can work them with gloves on - twist locks seize when cold and wet.

Will your ski poles do?

Mostly yes, with one change and one caveat.

The change is baskets. Ski pole baskets are usually mid-sized and can often be swapped for larger powder baskets, which are the same thing snowshoers call snow baskets. Do that and a spare pair of ski poles becomes a perfectly good pair of snowshoe poles.

The caveat is length. Ski poles are fixed, so you get one setting for the whole walk, and you will notice on any sustained climb or descent. On rolling terrain that is a minor annoyance; on a genuinely steep outing it is the reason to own adjustable ones.

Ski pole sizing is a different calculation too - done in ski boots, which add height. The ski pole page has that method; for snowshoeing, measure in the boots you will actually walk in.

Straps: use them, and know when not to

The strap is what lets you push through the pole without gripping hard all day, and the correct technique is to come up through the loop from underneath and then down over the grip, so the strap takes the load across your palm.

The exception worth knowing: on steep or exposed terrain, or crossing anything you could slide on, take your hands out of the straps. A pole attached to your wrist is a pole you cannot let go of. That is standard practice and it is the same reasoning that keeps this site’s backcountry page pointing at training rather than at a shopping list.

The rest of the snowshoe kit

Poles are a small part of it, and the two bigger decisions are sizing and footwear.

• Snowshoe size comes from total load - your weight plus clothing, boots, pack and anything you carry - matched to the maker’s published band. The bands in this ledger run from 80 lb to 300 lb. The sizing page.
• Boots, not ski boots. Waterproof, insulated, with a sole that grips in the cold. What to look for.
• Gaiters if the snow is deeper than your boot cuff. Otherwise snow enters at the top and melts inside.
• Layers you can remove. Snowshoeing is steady work and you will overheat if you dress for the temperature rather than the activity. The mid-layer page.
• Eye protection. An open winter trail is the same reflective environment as a piste, with the same consequences. Which is a page of its own.

Why there are no pole picks here

The snowshoes on this page are ranked because their makers publish load bands, weights and sizes that can be compared. Pole makers do not: shaft material and diameter, weight, basket dimensions and lock type are published inconsistently or not at all.

Building a ranking out of that would be ranking marketing copy rather than products, so we describe what to look for instead and say why. The rule is published, and the same stance applies to ski poles, winter boots and heated gear. When makers publish comparable figures, this page gets a table.

What to look for, in order: large snow baskets included or available, an external lever lock, an aluminum shaft if you want it to bend rather than snap, and a length range that covers your neutral setting plus ten centimeters either side.