Excellent Advice Ironraven,

I carry a tough telescopic show shovel on both my work and personal snowmobiles, a shovel regularly gets me out of trouble (e.g. shovel your way through lake slush to free the snowmobile).

Two years ago I rolled a very large heavy snowmobile (Ski-doo Scandic Super Wide Track) on a steep hillside and it ended up wedged on it's side against a tree. The snowmobile was heavily loaded with gear which I removed, but even with all my body weight I could not flip it back on to the track. So with a compact metal shovel I dug a large 3 foot deep sloping hole into the snow under the machine and used gravity to drop the machine into the hole, then I drove out. My other option was to use a come-along winch but it was in the underseat compartment and was difficult to access due to the tree.

A shovel is also great for piling up slush to freeze-in anchor points (keeps your mitts dry too).

Good idea about marking your snow trench, it would be awful to survive a bad experience only to be crushed by a resucuers snowmobile.

I agree with you about getting to land and shelter ASAP, surviving on the open ice would be very tough.

Mike