This winter I’ve had the opportunity to check out the new TSL Symbioz Snowshoe. I do a lot of snowshoeing for work, both as a hiking guide at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and for my Yoga Adventure programs: Frosty Snowshoe, Toasty Yoga. What I love about snowshoeing is that it’s a gateway into actually enjoying winter. In my opinion, many people who don’t love winter, would change their tune if they took more opportunities to get out there.
Snowshoeing requires minimal skills and minimal gear. Instead of spending the high price of learning to ski, with gear, lessons, lift tickets, one can simply strap on a pair of snowshoes and be on their way to winter adventure. I love to say to beginners, “if you can walk, you can snowshoe.” Most falling that I’ve witnessed, simply involves getting tripped up on sometimes clunky stiff snowshoes.
Enter the Symbioz by TSL. The symbioz snowshoe aims to bring new technology to snowshoeing with some smart tweaks to an age old design.
The Symbioz snowshoe aims to adapt to the walker’s stride rather than the other way around. Typical snowshoes are stiff and require a bit of a shuffle when you walk. The Symbioz is flexible to adapt to normal walking gait with it’a new technology called Hyper-flex concept. Symbioz uses carbon reinforcements to store energy during the bending phase, increase stride power and reduce effort.
The Symbioz is a light weight composite snowshoe with 8 stainless steel crampons on the bottom for traction downhill. It also features a heel lift bar to provide comfort during long ascents. It’s binding is designed spread your weight across the whole of the binding heel to also avoid discomfort during climbs.
The Test
I tested the Symbioz during a two hour hike on the trails and meadows around Kripalu Yoga Center in the Berkshires. It had recently snowed about 6 inches and the snow was still quite soft.
At first, I had to really be conscious to notice the differences between the Symbioz and a normal snowshoe. I had seen the pictures of the flexibility, but wasn’t quite sure how that would translate to walking.
After a while what I found was the flex allowed me to have a natural heel strike when walking on flat or rolling terrain. This change did in fact allow me to feel as though I was walking naturally rather than shuffling with a non-flexible snowshoe.
I also noticed the snowshoe was a bit narrower than my normal pair, it has more of an hourglass shape. This also allowed for a more natural gait, and as a woman it felt as though my walking could stay in line with my hips, rather than having to walk with a little wider gait.
On the uphill sections of the hike, I was able to easily flip the heel lift up with my hiking pole. Most lift’s I’ve used before simply have a bar, but the Symbioz heel lift is more triangular so it supports the entire heel.
The binding is probably the most sophisticated binding I’ve ever seen on a snowshoe. It slides shorter or longer to fit your exact sole length, has a memory lock toe and a full ankle wrap.
With eight stainless steel mountaineering like crampons underfoot, I had great traction on the downhills.
Overall I found the snowshoe quite comfortable. The attention to all of these details, really does create a more natural walking stride. As someone who generally prefers sliding on snow, rather than the snowshoe slog-I genuinely enjoyed myself on these. I didn’t feel like I was slogging at all! Although, I rarely trail run on snowshoes, I think these snowshoes would be great for running. They also make a racing model.
The Rating
5 (out of 5)
Design: Attention was definitely given to the design of this snowshoe. The hyperflex concept is a brand new design that you will not see in any other snowshoe. The crampons, heel lift, and binding are all innovative and well designed. + 1
Style: Its bright red composite material is definitely an attention getter. Every time I’ve used them, I’ve been asked about them. + 1
Performance: Both uphill, downhill, and on rolling terrain, these snowshoes performance was superb. They really improved my level of enjoyment of snowshoeing in general. + 1
Durability: The composite material is designed for all temperatures in mountain regions. The composite helps with great grip and confident tracking. +1
Comfort: The flex, “hour glass” shape, and secure binding made these the most comfortable snowshoes I have used. Even after two hours of trekking, I felt I could continue for much longer. +1
