Winter sports are the best activities to partake in during the holiday season. Inclement weather usually takes away our spring and summer activities like running and hiking, leaving us with what would seem like few options left. Mother Nature, however, always brings perks. Light to heavy snowfall anywhere from resorts to your own back yard provides the perfect platform to participate in a unique winter sport called snowshoeing.

Snowshoeing dates back thousands of years to the indigenous people of North America. If you have never seen a pair of snowshoes, the older ones look almost like mini canoes for your feet. Ancient snowshoes were originally made with leather or wood, while modern snowshoes are made of lightweight aluminum and look a bit like mini sleeping cots rather than canoes. The purpose of the snowshoe is to disperse your body weight over a greater area, preventing you from sinking into the snow and allowing you to hover and move with ease. They are used for hiking, running, mountaineering, and for recreation.

Recreational snowshoeing has gotten a lot more popular in recent years for its health benefits such as enhancing your endurance, flexibility, strength as well as your balance. Snowshoeing has to be one of my favorite winter activities because it is so easy to learn. If you can walk, you can snowshoe. Because it gives you just as good a workout as running on the beach, I always make sure to pack a small back pack with essentials like a BPA-free glass water bottle from Life Factory, protein bar, extra socks and my camera to capture the beautiful scenery. By the end of it you will be sweating in your snow suit!