Modern showshoes take advantage of technical advances in plastics to make a lighter and more durable shoe using modern materials. The modern snowshoes require require little maintenance, and usually incorporate aggressive crampons. Newer snowshoes have heel-lifters, called "ascenders", that flip up to facilitate hill climbing.
The method of walking is to lift the shoes slightly and slide the overlapping inner edges over each other, thus avoiding the unnatural and fatiguing "straddle-gait" that would otherwise be necessary. The walker, particularly the lead walker, must break a trail in the snow. The method of overlapping assists in making the path. Immoderate snowshoeing leads to serious lameness of the feet and ankles which the Canadian voyageurs call mal de raquette. Modern snowshoes are much lighter and more comfortable so that lameness caused by snowshoeing is now very rare.
Snowshoe racing is very common in the Canadian snowshoe clubs, and one of the events is a hurdle-race over hurdles 3 ft. 6 in. high. Snowshoeing is an alternative to cross-country skiing, which is more difficult in heavily forested areas.
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