Looks like a nice portable snow shovel. I'd pick one up if I saw it for $15 USD even.

Also, in my Cold Steel pursuit I read about a review by Fred Perrin. It was hosted on geocities which of course came down, but can be found at the internet archive, this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20050315132156/http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/2292/shovelrev.htm

Pretty entertaining. Also, note I had to highlight the whole page to view the text. It must have had a colored background that was lost in the backup.

Robert, +100 on the Cold Steel. IIRC, I bought mine in the mid 90's, give or take a year or two. Still going strong despite being used as a garden utensil, rock remover, pry bar, etc. Tough as nails, useful, and fit under the seat of my Ranger along with a hatchet (bought mine with no sheath as well and as it turns out haven't really needed it). Just be careful as that is carbon steel that will rust. Check on it every so often to make sure any moisture isn't turning your GFs emergency tool into swiss cheese.
Really like all the collapsible snow shovels and ones with take apart handles. Room permitting it makes sense to carry both the CS and a snow shovel. Snow shovel will move large amounts at a time and the CS will break apart the compacted stuff. Good luck Robert (and don't forget a CS shovel for your own stocking )

LOL, He sure seems to love his chopping flying digging shovel.

An Essay in Short Shovel Stupidity

I have avoided commenting on this thread for days for fear of offending the delicate feelings of supposed experts. But a phone call from my wife changed my mind. We live on the east side of Mount Hood in Oregon where mountain climbers keep dying to enter our water shed. She could not find the snow shovel which I had not retrieved from a locked shed before I left town. She decided to shovel 150 feet of sidewalk using her three foot long D handled emergency shovel from her car kit. This collapsible shovel had a heavy wooden handle that was friction fitted to a strong aluminum scoop blade. I modified it with a lockable D pin to insure that it would not loosen or come apart when in use. In my experience, most collapsible shovels do so during use. I have spent to much time on the dumb end of shovels.

The military designed their entrenching tools to be easy to pack and tough. But they also designed them to be very short for a specific reason. When soldiers are dodging bullets, the last thing they wanted was to be good targets, thus these entrenching tools were made to be used while on bellies or at worst on knees. While you say you are giving these short shovels to your loved ones for their benefit, you are actually giving them an instrument of self torture.

Picture your girl friend, sister, wife, daughter, mother, or grandmother on their hands and knees or more likely on their belly under their vehicle trying to free it from being high centered on snow with a short handled shovel. Cold wet slush is dripping off the vehicle down their neck while they are lying in muck trying to get rid of the spoon full of snow with their tiny shovel. They have to scoot back out from under the vehicle with each load because they are in the tunnel they dug to get to each scoop full. Not only is this uncomfortable and messy but dangerous especially if they have to get on the traffic side of the vehicle.

I made my wife’s shovel three foot long because she is shorter than me and I did not really think she would use it. How wrong I was! I size straight handled shovels to be at least as long as I am tall and D handled shovels chest high. You can work for hours without injuring your back if you know what your doing and you will be able to throw snow away from you. Powder snow and a short shovel is completely useless. I should have made my wife’s D handled shovel 3.5 feet or more long. She berated me not because she was tired but because she had to bend over to use the shovel resulting in a sore back. I have been instructed that when I get home to retrieve the normal snow shovel and lengthen her car kit shovel!

As an aside, AAA will not assist drivers on unpaved roads. We own property on Mount Adams across the Columbia River in Washington State where our ranchers association maintains the roads not the local government. We have been doing so for 50 years. Its snow a lot. It is not unusual to find people of all ages to be stuck in their vehicles. They either dig themselves out or wait to be rescued by fellow ranchers or our snow removal contractors. For many years, cell phones did not exist or was CB communications effective in this mountainous region. Everyone learned early on to effectively use shovels in snow and ice. No one and I repeat NO ONE gifts a short shovel unless one wants to receive same you know where! You can make a long collapsible shovel.

That is all. Carry on.

FWIW I will automatically bow to anyone who has to shovel snow more than a few days a year, in terms of what type of shovel is effective. I only shovel snow when I have to for shelter above the snowline (not often) or getting a car unstuck (not often), and I use an avalanche shovel that has proven to work well, and I can shovel comfortably with it for 1-2 hours. If I were clearing a driveway every day for 3 months I would hope for a snow blower or a longer handled shovel for Christmas. I finally took a look at the Cold Steel shovels spoken of in this thread and say - really? You use that thing to shovel on a regular basis? So I agree with turbo, short shovels are for the birds...

An excellent post Turbo.
I do own one of those cold steel shovels. soon after I got it I got rid of the short handle and replaced it with an ash staff tapered at one end for the socket to fit on.
Not riveting the shovel to the handle lets the two go separately.
The handle is my walking stick and the shovel head goes in the pack with other geotools when hiking and looking for rock samples.
A handle by itself is almost easy to stow, the head by itself is quite easy to stow.

I use the same strategy with other shovels and don't rivet the heads to the handles. If you insert the handle in the socket and bump the but end of the handle on something solid they tighten on very well.
When you want them apart you drive the shovel off the handle. I usually just slam the shovel backwards against something solid (like a rock) to get them apart.
I have never had the shovel heads come off the handles when I was using them.

The adze eyed picks are the same idea. They are meant to just jam tight on the handle with a smart bump against something hard and come back apart for stowing away. They are not meant to be riveted or wedged (unlike axes).

The shovel in the car is a normal round point shovel with a loose handle. The handle on it is about 6 inches shorter than normal so it fits in the trunk easy.
It might not be the greatest snow shovel but it will work on almost anything that can be shoveled.
I prefer the solid forged shovels to the stamped ones but that is just personal preference. Most people like the stamped metal shovels because they are lighter.

Yeah, we got sidetracked with CS Shovels for specific situations and collapsible shovels for self-propelled trips.

Looking back over the thread, though, the consensus about what works best in serious snow is pretty clear. Long handles and large heads are absolutely the first choice in that situation.

I just keep a regular GI shovel in my car (it's a 4x4). My GF keeps a full size in her trunk, with the handle cut to size to just squeeze in. I've used it once, and was glad it was her shovel and not mine! Though, admittedly, I probably could have driven out if it was my car.

I hear the "grain shovels" are the best for snow. But I do fine with the flat-ish ones.

Turbo, given a choice and no room restrictions I would of course prefer a full sized shovel (or tool of any sort). But I can't fit a full sized shovel under the seat of my Ranger. Of course I could throw one in the bed but here any tool that is not tied down gets stolen and ends up at a flea market. Besides, the CS is always there if needed. I am not recommending everyone rush out and buy one and forego other tools. By all means if you have the room bring along a bigger tool. For what it is though the CS is handy to have around. Oh, I forgot to mention no affiliations with CS (standard disclaimer). No offense taken as to each his own .
Scafool's comments have got me thinking though. I think a nearly full size handle would fit behind the seat and the shovel (or just the shovel head) would still fit under the seat. Hmmm ... who says you can't have your cake and eat it too .

D-handles are shorter than straight handles to start with and a D-handle for a spade is quite short by itself.

The socket on a Cold Steel does not fit a regular shovel handle because it is a bit smaller.
However it does fit a floral size shovel handle which are a little bit thinner and shorter than a regular handle.

I would likely buy the floral head instead of a CS shovel if I was just going to use it for getting a car unstuck.

Cost does matter to me and the CS shovels are a bit more expensive, but my CS shovel gets used rock hounding and gets a lot of abuse which the usual stamped steel shovels don't stand up to for long.
Regular shovels are much more comfortable to dig with if you have to move a lot of dirt or snow because the angle between the head and handle is better to work with.

Also you can usually find shovels missing handles "dirt" cheap.