Snowshoeing in Alberta: Step off the beaten path with confidence

Dec 8, 2020

Strap a pair of snowshoes to your feet and let the topographic boundaries of winter in Alberta drift away. Step away from the resorts and the paved pathways to discover solitude and silence in some of the best untracked snow in the prairies. Best of all, Alberta has a lot of snow to spare – so you can pretty much go in any direction!

Interesting fact: The invention of the snowshoe is attributed to the Indigenous people of North America. The Inuit designs are round or triangular for walking across the tundra, the Cree made narrow shoes almost two metres long to walk through dense forests and the First Nations peoples of the Prairies learned to run after bison wearing snowshoes.

So, if the people over a century ago could chase bison wearing big clumsy heavy handmade snowshoes, why after three strides wearing lightweight streamlined modern snowshoes was I face down in a snowdrift? Thankfully, I wasn’t chasing supper. I was only out for a fun day exploring the forest near Banff.

Snowshoeing Winter Grande Prairie Wapiti Club

Photo: Jeremy Derksen

Have a little bonfire to warm up at the end of your snowshoe.

Here are our top suggestions for snowshoeing in Alberta

Only a short drive from Calgary is West Bragg Creek with trails for testing your snowshoe skills. It’s pretty popular with fat bikes and cross-country skiers too so, do like I said, go off the beaten path.

Chester Lake in K-Country is rated by many locals as the ultimate snowshoe trail. It’s a bit of a grind at first but quickly takes you into spectacular scenery.

In Banff National Park, there is no limit on terrain. Moose Meadows near Johnston Canyon is lovely and flat, or head up to the Ink Pots.

Snowshoe trails are all over the place in the river valley in Edmonton, but we know to the west is Edson, and the Nordic trails at Hinton, as well as further north in Grande Prairie. In Jasper, there is a popular loop is around Pyramid Lake.

East of Edmonton there are trails through Elk Island National Park. (The Astotin Lake Campground kiosk rents snowshoes)

Every day spent outside should be followed by epic stories of fresh finds, trail triumphs and hilarious newbie falls. Make sure you go prepared for the weather and the terrain.

Photo: Gyanendra Gurung

The fun of snowshoeing is forging your own path, letting the gear do the work of keeping you afloat on the snow.

Go out on your own
Let’s get one thing straight about snowshoeing. You don't need to follow a packed down path like you would with regular shoes. Go on, meander the meadows and the forest trails that you forgot about when the snow fell. The purpose of the snowshoe is to keep you floating on top of the snowpack so marching along a trodden path is unnecessary. Spread out on the trails and have fun. Look for footprints in the snow and see if you can guess what creature was there before you. When we trekked (or fell) in the meadow under Castle Mountain we found prints from moose, deer, mice and lots of rabbits.

Want to get a little more gnarly? Take an avalanche safety course and become aware of the nuances of the backcountry before you head out. Avalanche Canada can help you out with that!