Atlas Aspect Snowshoes

EDITOR'S PICK: ASPECTS FLATTEN CLIMBS AND EASE TRAVERSES

The Earn Your Turns movement has snowballed and put skins on skis and splitboards from Maine to Alaska.  Mainline snowshoe companies have tooled up in response to the awakening in backcountry travel possibilities, opening up first-turns terrain for even immediate skiers.

With 26 years of backwoods and high country trekking under their webbing, Atlas is not content to see skins get all the attention.  With Aspect, Atlas shows up with a serious effort to go higher with greater control on the sketchiest approaches and ice-glazed ridges.

Like a hybrid between a crosscut saw and a Special Ops multi-tool, the shoe shows its 360 degree teeth from nose to tail in a 28” long, under-5 lb. package that puts the summit within reach of climbers tipping it at up to 225 (the 24” version is for the sub-190 crowd).   

The literature attached to the product is rife with trademarked features covering the Aspect’s construction, suspension, bindings and more.  Good stuff perhaps, but wholly inadequate to describe the traction and torsion control found in conditions that made skinning, at best, a romantic idea.

Image via Michael Stolp-Smith

Ice climbers know the nearly-mythical experience of solid front-pointing with their crampons. Thanks to the saw-toothed perimeter of the Aspect, the fierce under-foot crampons are saved for activation when conditions call for consistent penetration with minimal effort.   When employed with training and sound judgment, remote locations are now within range. 

Getting to these tourist-free zones takes efficient approach trekking and traversing.  The binding, generous enough to accommodate larger mountaineering and snowboarding boots, behaves as if it has a built-in gyroscope.  In one outing, as the boot-up crew abandoned a direct summit route for switchback trails – and the skin skiers hesitated – the Aspect delivered full frame and deck contact even as the tester’s AT boots strided perpendicularly to the fall line.

Little effort was wasted and the Heel Lift bar was reserved for the diciest sections.  The Aspect’s flotation was dialed in for the 24” length and then scaled up for the 28.”  At 210 lbs. for day trips, there was room for more loading, and extracting the Aspects from punched-through crust didn’t have the bulldog-latched-on-my-ankle sensation of tubular, recreational shoes.  Frame and decking knifed through corn snow and steadily shed debris.

The Aspect from Atlas musters guide-level features in a quick-handling package tailored to backcountry applications.  With few obvious concerns, the binding and decking systems complement the all-points toothed frame for positive surface contact in variable snow conditions. 

Atlas calls their product revolutionary.  No matter the words, the Aspect goes toe-to-toe with products like MSR’s Lightening Ascent to take a well-earned bite out of the rising level in backcountry zeal.

Craving more snowshoeing? Check out 5 Reasons to Snowshoe and 12 of our Favorite Snowshoeing Destinations.