I crafted two of these this feburary for a snow school with my high school climbing club, The Bushwhackers (The Bush School- absolutely no affiliation with dubya). We dug 2 mammoth snow caves on the east side of the alpental/chair peak basin. With duct tape, strong epoxy, and two layers of pliable, but tenacious plastic sheet. They are most effective at moving large masses of loose snow away from the worksite, like out from infront of the cave entrance. But when the snow gets too consolidated this thang is virtually useless unless you want to etch some pictographs or something. We brought it along only because we had extra room on our sled. I wouldn't bring it next time unless it was car-snow camping If nothing, it makes a fine sled over snow that has been rained on for 20 hours and is super-saturated with 3.5 inches of rain on feb. 21