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.