Snowshoes alter a persons walking biomechanics, couple that with the added weight and you fatigue more easily. The best way to get around this is to train for it. You can do this a couple of ways...

1.) Just go snow shoeing. The first couple of trips are uncomfortable as the body adjusts. Probably the most straight forward and direct method.

2.) Lactate threshold training. Basically, the human body produces by-products as a result of exercise that cause fatigue. Lactate is one such metabolite that is associated with fatigue (or "the burn"). The lactate threshold is the level at which lactate accumulation (in the muscles) is greater than lactate removal. When your producing more than you can remove, you fatigue. To increase your lactate threshold you train at the hardest level you can sustain for around 3-4 minutes. It should be uncomfortable. In short, the more exposure your body has to these fatigue inducing products, the better it gets at buffering and removing them.

Here is a good summary article on the process if your interested:
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20 ... shold.html

not sure if thats what you wanted, but there you go.

OP: What are you metrics? I've snowshoed up one of local mountains 2x in deep powder, about 3600' elevation gain to over 11000'. My snowshoe pace up this peak is about 33% to 40% of my summer pace.

Showshoeing in deep powder is incredibly tiring. Plan to take the whole day and rest frequently. Go with other folks and trade off on breaking the trail.

MoapaPk wrote:OP: What are you metrics? I've snowshoed up one of local mountains 2x in deep powder, about 3600' elevation gain to over 11000'. My snowshoe pace up this peak is about 33% to 40% of my summer pace.

Showshoeing in deep powder is incredibly tiring. Plan to take the whole day and rest frequently. Go with other folks and trade off on breaking the trail.

My mountain climbing season starts around march for anything above 10000', so my postholing experience says up to 2000' in elevation gain, over a range of 1-4 miles, in 3 feet o' snow, I can move at perhaps 1/3 of my normal pace (though I got into great shape this summer and havent tried lately, so my pace might increase)

MoapaPk wrote:Go with other folks and trade off on breaking the trail.

I always seem to get the short end of the stick in that deal.

CSUMarmot wrote:

MoapaPk wrote:OP: What are you metrics? I've snowshoed up one of local mountains 2x in deep powder, about 3600' elevation gain to over 11000'. My snowshoe pace up this peak is about 33% to 40% of my summer pace.

Showshoeing in deep powder is incredibly tiring. Plan to take the whole day and rest frequently. Go with other folks and trade off on breaking the trail.

My mountain climbing season starts around march for anything above 10000', so my postholing experience says up to 2000' in elevation gain, over a range of 1-4 miles, in 3 feet o' snow, I can move at perhaps 1/3 of my normal pace (though I got into great shape this summer and havent tried lately, so my pace might increase)

As others have said, it really depends on the snow conditions. You can move faster when it's well-consolidated, slower when it's slushy or powdery. There are times on Sierra cement or Cascades concrete when my snowshoeing speed approaches my normal hiking speed. If I have to break trail then I slow down dramatically and have to take more frequent breaks.

Either way, it's good for ya Better than sitting in front of a computer ..

Mountainjeff wrote:There is something to be said for snowshoe technique. A lot of new snowshoers tend to duckwalk and swing their legs wide to avoid tripping over their own feet. It is important to learn to walk with as normal of a gait as possible. Otherwise you will get really sore very quickly no matter how fit you are.

I have been 'shoeing for 4 years now and I have, just this season, been paying more attention to my technique. It helps!

As to the OP's question, I would say that you will see gains in endurance with practice, whether on groomed stuff or back country type terrain.

As others may have said, your energy expended depends a lot on snow conditions. Breaking new or soft snow is always harder than the hard stuff. Of course you'll also have to walk a little bowlegged which might take some getting used to. I use skis when I can, but use snowshoes on occasion.

I think that choosing the right snowshoe for the intended use and user is most important, then becoming sure-footed and agile on them will come with practice.

Here is an article about choosing snowshoes:
http://www.examiner.com/outdoor-recreat ... t-snowshoe