the Way of the Turtle

Ah, Late Fall - When a Not-So-Young Man's Fancy Lightly Turns to Thoughts of SNOWSHOE SEASON!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The 2011-12 WMAC Dion Snowshoe Series schedule was released today... snowshoe season is almost upon us!

Snowshoe racing has really taken off in the northeast... when I started snowshoeing, the main option was the WMAC Dion series, with a few races offered out in western NY. Now there are major series in western New England, New Hampshire, and New York, plus a slew of races that are either part of smaller series or stand-alone events.

The oldest (and, in my biased opinion, the best!) series is the WMAC Dion Snowshoe Series, with races in western MA, southern VT, southern NH, and eastern NY. This year we have a tentative schedule of 17 races, from literally the day after Christmas until mid-March. This is a great group for newbies to snowshoeing - we welcome all paces (most races have at least a few folks who hike the course rather than run it) and most of the events have a low-key feel that I really appreciate. If you're going to do any snowshoe events this season, I strongly recommend doing one with this group. A word of warning, though - you may find yourself hooked and then you too will be spending winter weekends travelling to all sorts of spots in the middle of nowhere to stumble around in the snow for a while.

The Dion Empire State Snowshoe Series is relatively new and grew out of the old Empire State Snowshoe Racing Association (designed to help people qualify for the Empire State Winter Games.) There are currently 14 races on the schedule; in the past, their site has also been a good resource for non-series races around New York state (at the moment, that portion is marked as needing an update.)

The third major series is the Granite State Snowshoe Series, organized by the folks at Acidotic Racing. No surprise, the races are focused on New Hampshire, mainly the eastern portion of the state. They've currently got 8 races on their schedule.

more to come...