Thanks WanderingEng for the story and for the snowshoeing tips. I always have my snowshoes along on winter camp outings but so far have never trodden over about two miles at a time on them. I just bring them in case the sky decides to dump a huge load of snow while I am afield.
You've done winter overnights? All my winter hiking has been day hiking only, but I want to get into winter camping this year. I bought a liquid fuel stove and am looking for the right sale for a winter sleeping bag. I figure I'll need a larger pack, too. My snowshoe experience is if you're reasonably comfortable hiking, adding snowshoes to the mix isn't a lot more challenging. It can be much slower depending on how much snow is there, but there aren't a lot of new skills to learn.
Yeah probably if there's enough snow to warrant snowshoes then hiking without them would be even slower. And if the snow is like knee high or more the snowshoes could save you from life-threatening exhaustion, right?