A Guide to Winter Snowshoeing  November/December 1986 The
earliest specialized snow-going footwear was probably crafted
around 6,000 years ago in Central Asia—a solid wood platform
with a crude binding that was neither snowshoe nor ski, but a
primitive forerunner of both.   A guide to walking into
winter—and back out again. Learn about the quiet art of winter
snowshoeing.   A Guide to Winter Snowshoeing  As a child, I had
a favorite escapist fantasy: passing a winter holed up in a
rustic, high-country cabin. In this dream I smiled a lot, at
peace in my solitude, warmed inside and out by a winking wood
fire while a friendly wall of white mounted deep beyond the
door. Today I live that dream, sort of, in a board-and-batten
aerie perched at 8,000 feet on a steep mountain slope.  My
little redoubt is connected to the blacktop two-lane down in the
valley by a series of rutted but passable dirt roads, and thus
is far less secluded than I would like during the summer months.
But the place gets remote real quick when