Like quite a lot of people, I suspect, I once considered the onset of winter, with the mountains locked in snow, as the end of play. Not being a particularly good skier, deep snow meant a full stop to three seasons of boreal travel. My discovery of snowshoes has radically changed things. Snowshoes work by distributing your weight over a larger area so your foot doesn’t sink completely into the snow, a quality called “flotation”. As a form of hiking, it’s reassuringly simple and very easy to learn. Little extra equipment is required beyond the shoes themselves, walking poles, decent boots and, of course, a clothing system that’s waterproof but, above all, breathable.