A compact shovel for excavating avalanche burials.

An avalanche shovel is a specialized compact shovel that has a collapsible or removable handle that makes it easy to store in a backpack. A reliable shovel is an essential rescue tool for digging out a buried victim efficiently. Digging is by far the most time-consuming component of rescue: make sure that you know how to assemble and effectively use your shovel. Plastic shovels are known to break while digging through dense avalanche debris – make sure yours is metal, durable, and large enough to move sizable volumes of snow quickly. Shovels are also used to dig pits for conducting snowpack tests.