Shovels

AVALANCHE SHOVELS

Shovels That Span The Divide Between Heaven & Hell
By Manuel Genswein and Ragnhild Eide

This project was carried out under the patronage of The Austrian Alpine Club. All equipment has been purchased and paid for by the authors and none of the involved parties are in any way involved in the manufacturing, sales or promotion of any of the tested equipment. The equipment was tested during the field tests for two recent research projects' the V-shaped Excavation Strategy (avalanche.ca vol 84 p 57-60 Spring 2008) and Companion Rescue with Minimal Training (avalanche.ca, vol 86 p 57-60, Fall 2008).

Scope and Description of the Test
The publication of the V-shaped snow conveyor excavation strategy has triggered many questions concerning the quality and efficiency of the working tools—in particular the avalanche shovel. To our big surprise, shovel models that were rated "recommended" by certain European mountain magazines utterly failed during our field tests. It is clear that these shovels had been rated without any serious testing in snow and hard avalanche debris.

Our test focused on avalanche shovels that can be carried in a normal sized backpack. Specialized rescue shovels with large steel blades have not been taken into consideration. The same is true for plastic shovels. They usually break in cold temperatures and hard debris before the first buried subject can be excavated. There are even some shoveling tools available without a shaft. These have not been taken into account due to the inefficiencies of their mechanical and/or ergonomic design.

Only correct shoveling technique was used during the test. All participants were shown how to cut blocks and specifically instructed not to break up the debris by leveraging the handle with a lot of force. All failures and observations were seen during regular use of the shovels and probes in avalanche rescue, the application they are primarily designed and sold for.

Besides testing a selection of the currently available products, the aim of this project is to provide a detailed overview on the many important characteristics and functions of a shovel. The resulting criteria may be used as an evaluation guide for future products. The manufacturers of the tested products have been asked to comment the test result for their product. Their reaction may be found at: www.bergundsteigen.at

To continue reading this article please download the attached pdf below.