The 3 Best Snowshoes of 2025

After reading dozens of snowshoe buyer reviews, doing online research, and factoring in over a decade of my own personal experience hiking with snowshoes, we outlined the following criteria:

Terrain: Packed snow, fluffy snow, deep fluffy snow, ice—there’s a different type of shoe for each of these conditions. Add in the angle of the slope you’re hiking, and things get even more variable.

Since fluffy snow doesn’t last long, and deep fluffy snow is really hard to hike in (even with snowshoes), we looked for a pair that was more suited for use on packed snow, which we think most recreational hikers are interested in.

Length: Your shoe shouldn’t be longer than necessary, because carrying extra weight on your feet gets tiring. Generally speaking, long, wide snowshoes are for staying on top of fresh powder, exactly the way a boat floats on water. Shorter shoes are more beneficial for hiking on packed snow, when the challenge is less about floating on top and more about keeping your boot from punching through the hardpack.

The length of a snowshoe also correlates to the weight of the wearer: Longer shoes keep heavier hikers up and out of the snow.

Materials: The least expensive snowshoes are typically made with aluminum and plastic; the most expensive, with nylon and steel.

For the casual hiker, the thing to pay attention to is what the spikes under your foot are made of. Cheap shoes have aluminum rails and spikes. The rails are the metal frame underfoot, and the spikes are often integrated into that frame (though not always). Eventually, without care, those components can wear down, warp, and fall apart. Steel rails and spikes underfoot generally indicate a higher-quality shoe that can take more of a beating.

The trade-off for using steel, as always, is weight. So it’s not uncommon to see aluminum used for snowshoe frames (not the spikes)—especially long frames, the kind you need to stay afloat in deep, fluffy snow.

Boot-attachment system: A snowshoe typically attaches to your boot in the most low-tech way, using plastic straps. This is a good thing. Hardy, robust straps are what can withstand the strain from your boot pulling on the shoe over and over again.

Sometimes they have a ratchet system, sometimes they have buckles. Sometimes the straps are made of nylon or even metal cables. Putting the snowshoes on is basically the same, though: You slide your foot in between the straps and tighten them down.

The most important thing is that your foot is secure in the shoe, as you’ll be putting your snowshoes through a surprising amount of abuse, whether you’re clomping endlessly through the snow, making casual missteps, or simply banging them around on the pavement before or after your hike.