This makes the sport ideal for families with young children. Manufacturers have fed the trend by designing snowshoes that are lighter and easier to use. The old wooden snowshoes strung with rawhide, though still preferred by purists, are going the way of wooden skis. Nowadays, most snowshoes have aluminum or plastic frames and come equipped with lace bindings and built-in crampons for gripping ice and snow. Not everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.
Snowshoes are transport.
Skis, cross-country skis, are magic. Two snowshoers reach the summit of Round Mountain near St. Huberts. Perhaps, but you'd have to be quite a magician to get your skis to the places I have been on snowshoes, such as Ice Cave Mountain, a small peak south of Old Forge without a marked trail. Places are more accessible because the undergrowth is gone. And there are no bugs and few people.