Dion Snowshoes is a Vermont-based firm that’s gaining traction (and flotation) with their light-weight and modular backcountry and racing snowshoes. Whereas you should purchase their snowshoes totally assembled, it’s also possible to customise and swap between completely different frames bindings, and cleats, relying on the kind of mountain climbing/working, footwear, or floor situations you’re prone to encounter. When totally assembled, all of their snowshoes are additionally significantly lighter weight than extra mainstream snowshoes from MSR, Atlas, or Tubbs, they fold flat towards a backpack making them straightforward to hold, they usually’re simply as sturdy, particularly since you’ll be able to exchange the parts in the event that they put on out relatively than shopping for a completely new snowshoe.
On this assessment, I consider the Dion 164 Body supposed for mountain climbing, Dion’s Quickfit Binding, and two of their cleats, the stainless-steel Ice Cleat supposed for ice and rocky terrain, and the aluminum Deep Cleat supposed for powdery snow.
The 164 Body
The Dion I64 Body is a straightforward 8″ x 24.7″ aluminum body with pre-attached decking and an aluminum heel cleat. The 164 body has light-weight plastic decking which is securely riveted to the aluminum body with redundant rivets and has a pre-installed cross-piece for mounting a cleat or what I’d referred to as a snowshoe crampon. It’s a lot quieter to snowshoe with than the plastic snowshoes made by well-liked producers.
The aluminum body is sort of stiff when snowshoeing, however nonetheless comparatively light-weight at 2 lbs 5.8 oz/pair and appropriate for hundreds as much as 280 lbs (together with a backpack). It doesn’t include a televator which is a bit of wire that may be flipped up off the decking to boost your heel and make it simpler to climb slopes whereas relieving calf fatigue. The dearth of a televator made me hesitate to judge Dion’s snowshoes since it’s thought-about by many to be a must have for mountain mountain climbing in winter.
Anecdotally, I’ve been experiencing ache in my quads when utilizing televators this winter, in all probability attributable to muscle tightness, however I can’t say I’ve missed them that a lot when snowshoeing up massive peaks. Good traction within the type of aggressive cleats goes an extended solution to mitigating their absence.
QuickFit Binding
The Dion QuickFit binding (3.2 oz) has two webbing prime straps and a heel strap secured with Velcro. I’m undecided how they did it, however the Velcro nonetheless works even when coated by snow. The binding straps can be found in a number of sizes and replaceable, in small, medium, and huge lengths comparable to completely different boot sizes as much as a dimension 14. This implies you would use the QuickFit binding with 400-gram winter mountain climbing boots, higher-volume mountaineering boots, and even higher-volume pack boots, just by changing the binding straps. The various-length straps additionally allow you to eradicate further slack in your straps, which may be annoying, by selecting the suitable size in your footwear.
The QuickFit binding and all of Dion’s bindings fold flat which makes them straightforward to lash to the perimeters of your backpack because you typically have to hold snowshoes on hikes once you don’t know what path situations forward can be like (even for those who don’t use them). I want fold-flat bindings however fewer and fewer snowshoes include them, choosing a lot bulkier Boa or ratchet-based bindings. The draw back of these bulkier bindings is that your pack’s compression straps aren’t lengthy sufficient to strap snowshoes to the perimeters of your pack, which is essentially the most handy and environment friendly solution to carry them.
In apply, the QuickFit binding may be very straightforward to placed on and take off whereas sporting gloves. It’s very secure and doesn’t create any stress factors inside your boots. It’s threaded by way of plastic ladder lock buckles, so that you simply need to ensure you don’t pull the ends out when taking off the snowshoes, as you will have to take your gloves off to rethread them, and that sucks in chilly climate.
Cleats (Crampons)
I’ve used the Dion 164 Body/QuickFit Binding with two of Dion’s cleats – their stainless-steel Ice Cleat (3.0 oz/every) and their aluminum Deep Cleat (2.4 oz/every). The stainless-steel Ice Cleat is the extra sturdy of the 2 and is designed for mountain climbing on combined ice and rock, making it best for mountain mountain climbing within the Northeastern United States.
Whereas the aluminum Deep Cleat is lighter weight, it’s designed for powdery dry snow and is far much less sturdy. In use, I didn’t discover all that a lot distinction between the 2 cleats: I attribute that to the truth that we are inclined to have principally crusty snow in New Hampshire and never a lot powder, the results of intermittent thaws, rainfall, and snow within the mountain maritime local weather.
However if you’d like a cleat that’s going to take abuse, I’d go together with the stainless-steel Ice Cleat. I’ve used aluminum mountaineering crampons fairly extensively they usually get worn down rapidly after a season or two of reasonable use. You may’t sharpen them successfully they usually should be changed once they get worn down. Stainless-steel is the way in which to go and the load distinction is negligible.
The cleats connect to the 164 body with two locking screws that match by way of pre-drilled holes within the cleat meeting. It’s fairly intuitive to assemble the body, binding, and cleats nevertheless it helps to have a preassembled snowshoe for instance for straightforward reference.
The draw back of Dion’s cleats is that they don’t present the side-hilling traction that many heavier snowshoes just like the MSR Lightning Ascent or MSR Evo Ascent present. That traction within the type of a serrated body or aspect rails, along with a entrance crampon, may be fairly helpful when crossing slopes or strolling above deep chasms the place an uncontrolled slide could be very unhealthy. The Dion 164 is a way more standard old-school snowshoe, and whereas lighter weight, it’s simply not in the identical league as a snowshoe that has a number of completely different crampon orientations.
Advice
Dion makes modular snowshoes with three parts: a body, a binding, and a cleat that you may combine and match for various snow/ice situations, footwear selections, and equipment weight necessities. In addition to being lighter weight than hottest snowshoes, the benefit is that you may tailor their snowshoes to your precise wants or exchange parts in the event that they break or put on out, with out having to purchase solely new snowshoes. Dion’s bindings additionally fold flat towards the perimeters of a backpack, making them straightforward to hold utilizing the pack’s compression straps.
Nevertheless, Dion’s snowshoes lack televators which many individuals really feel is a vital support when climbing mountains on steep trails. In addition they lack cleats which are particularly designed for side-hilling. However for those who’re prepared to forgo these capabilities, they’re fairly purposeful snowshoes and fairly light-weight topping out at 3 lb 2 oz/pair which is a big weight discount over different mainstream snowshoes designed for mountain mountain climbing.
If you happen to don’t care in regards to the modularity of Dion’s snowshoes and simply need a full snowshoe for mountain mountain climbing that you just by no means want to switch, I’d suggest getting their preassembled 164 Quickfit Binding/Ice Cleat mannequin, which is sort of fairly priced, however can nonetheless be modified or simply repaired down the street.
Disclosure: Dion donated snowshoes for assessment.
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