The MSR Brand
MSR is a highly respected company within the outdoor community. They make a wide range of gear including one of my favorites the MSR Dromlite and the always well reviewed MSR Hubba Hubba Tent. When looking for snowshoes, you know that you can trust the MSR brand.
Quality for Price
When I was looking for snowshoes, I knew I didn’t want to pay over $150. The MSR Lightning Ascent is one of the best around for its ease of use and technical specs but at $240 it was a bit over my budget. The Tubbs Mountaineer is even more expensive at $270. I then looked for lower budget snowshoes and found the MSR Evo 22 Snowshoes for $112 on Amazon!
For only $112, the Evos worked great in all kinds of New England winter hiking conditions. They are Rolling Terrain snowshoes with a load of up to 180 lbs. The frame and deck are made from plastic. On our trip to Mount Waumbek, we had to trail-break the entire way through 5 inches of new snow. Even without the extra inserts, the Evos made the trip much easier! On our hike to Mount Cabot, we encountered different winter terrain: melting slush and granular snow. The Evos were again holding up to the added slippery terrain and gave us great traction, support, and ease of hiking during the ascent.
The only downsides to the Evos are that during descents, we found that the straps would sometimes come undone and we would have to reclip them in. Other than that, these snowshoes are the best bang for your buck.
6 Comments
Hey there, love your blog! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and feedback on gear. I’m really trying to get more into outdoor adventure, hiking, backpacking, etc. and I’m still in the research phase to learn more about how to make it happen. I’m curious if you have any advice for recent college grads who don’t really have many friends as interested in this type of stuff (so may be going on these trips solo), and who are also living on a relatively tight budget. I’m trying to start acquiring some equipment little by little, but don’t have much of it (just got hiking boots and a backpack). Can you share more about how you budget for your trips, gear, etc. any advice you have on getting started on this stuff from scratch? Would love to see how I can make this happen for someone like myself and see if you have any advice/tips being an experienced hiker. Thanks so much, appreciate your time and awesome adventures!
Hi Alex,
Thanks for visiting the site!
I was in your shoes not too long ago. I would suggest joining an outdoor hiking group like the Appalachian Mountain Club (https://www.outdoors.org/). I live in Boston so I am an active member of the Boston chapter. They have multiple chapters around New England too. The hikes are free to go on and you don’t technically need to pay for membership when you first start. If you don’t want something as official, Hiking Meetup Groups are great too (https://www.meetup.com/topics/hiking/). The benefit of joining a more official group like the AMC is that you can get more benefits like used gear sales and instructional courses for technical hiking.
Gear – Good shoes and a backpack are good for many hikes! I’d start with hiking in the summer and nice weather until you can pick up more gear. A lot of the gear I have like hiking poles and my MSR water bladder are nice but not necessary. Even with clothes, I found that my normal workout/gym clothes are fine most of the time and it’s not necessary to buy things like those zip-off hiking pants. When you want to pick up more gear, I would recommend looking at used gear first. You can check out the REI Garage Sale (https://www.rei.com/promotions/garage-sale), Craigslist, and on Facebook hiking groups there are often Backpacking Gear Sales.
One more thing on gear and brands – once you start joining some hiking groups, talk to people about what gear they like. Sometimes the more expensive brands are not always the best. For example my go-to waterproof rain jacket was $60 at The North Face outlet in Freeport, Maine. I could’ve easily spent $130-$300 but I heard from a friend that my specific jacket worked really well, and I was able to save some money there! I have a bigger gear list on my post here: http://www.femalehiker.com/hikes/whats-in-my-bag
Hope this helps and feel free to reach out if you have more specific questions.
Thanks so much for your recommendations! I’m familiar with some, but the others I will definitely take a look at! By any chance do you follow or know of any websites or travel forums where people discuss or notify you of good travel and flight deals that are happening? I know every once in a while some really good fares (sometimes even some mistake fares) pop up, so I’m just curious if you have any knowledge of the best way to learn about these? Thank you again for your thoughtful response!
Yes! I use FlyerTalk. There are some great tips there for flights and also frequent flier miles/points.
Hello. And Bye.