Garneau Phenom Snowshoes

Overview: An ongoing project, Garneau tried to develop something really high end, really new that focuses on traction for all the back country like the high end back country users, snowboarders, skiers and the aim was to develop a snowshoe which was super lightweight, super ergonomic and has plenty of traction. What they came up with was to bond literally the traction aids right there within the frame. They worked closely with Lock Tight to provide this front and back tracking motion. The bonding technology gives the lightweight of the aluminum but the strength of the stainless steel at the back.

Right now it’s an ongoing project and they’re still testing it to make sure everything is right but it’s a really sweet project. If you can look at the profile, this is the profile of the frame and what’s happening is it’s going to dig in the snow and the side traction it’s going to offer is going to be a lot better than a tubular, round, conventional  frame.

The volume we need for snowboards, for ski boots is going to be all taken care of with this harness. So you have fully adjustable front and back and after that what’s happening is it’s guided within the harness, so it’s all tubing that’s guiding the cable so the cable is all the way down. And this little feature right there, the tongue of the harness allows you to really open it up, add an easy insertion in the snowshoe harness and when you put it back and release it, it’s easy to remove all the excess cable within the system. So this platform is really cool, a really integrated system.

They put this in a box because it’s not finalized yet, but what’s happening is when they have rivets, there’s a stress concentration within the decking itself. So what Garneau is trying to do now is to bond the decking within the frame. The surface area is enhanced by 10 times and with that we can use lighter materials to have this technology working for us and for the people using it. It’s still in testing and they’re really proud to showcase that but right now they still have the testing to do to bring it to market.

For more information on all Garneau’s products and technologies, you can visit their website here.