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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 Ancient snowshoes were originally made with leather or wood, while modern snowshoes are made of lightweight aluminum and look a bit like mini sleeping cots rather than canoes.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!

If you are planning on hitting the slopes this holiday season, one of the best year-round mountain resorts to visit is Northstar-at-Tahoe. This is one of the most ideal places to visit in the winter because unlike many of the surrounding resorts, Northstar is less crowded, giving you and the family ample opportunity to take part in all of the great winter sport activities it has to offer!

If you are not a big fan of winter sports however, the Northstar resort is still your best bet for holiday travel. There are plenty of fun and festive activities to partake in. First and foremost, they have over 30 unique shops and restaurants to visit, which are, in my opinion, both chic and hip. Secondly, their skating rink clocks in at 9,000 square feet, which gives plenty of elbow room for beginning skaters. It is a hub of activity this time of year because of their tubing, skiing and snowboarding lessons, adventure parks, mountain tours, and panoramic sightseeing tours. For lodging guests, there is also a pool, spa, and fitness center, so your workouts do not fall to the wayside!

Northstar Resort is also very environmentally responsible, admirably so for a four season destination. They strive to enhance natural resources by espousing a Habitat Management Plan that balances land use with aquatic and rural habitats. Their seral (ancient) forests contain unique wildlife like the California Spotted Owl and Pileated Woodpecker, which are survived by restricting access from visitors during critical nesting seasons.

Northstar-at-Tahoe was ranked the fifteenth top resort in North America, which further cements my reason for visiting year after year. The absence of huge crowds has added so much value to my experience there, and the slopes are just too good to pass up! You will definitely find me on the mountain snow boarding during New Year’s weekend, would love to see you there too!

References:

http://www.northstarattahoe.com/