"As far as Brian's comment about shovels, I always carry mine. I find it really useful for a lot of things, including digging out my tent platform and the area in front of my tent, getting snow for water, digging a latrine or digging out your car in the parking lot. I wouldn't want to be using a snowshoe for any of that. I bought a Snow-Claw when they first came out, but it is more useful for sitting on than anything else."
Thanks, Tom --- this is just the sort of thing I was looking for in this thread. Now I'm starting to think more seriously about buying that 1 pound metal tipped shovel and perhaps taking it on a few more trips.
But I suspect I'll still err on the side of making do with snowshoe or snowclaw. I did a 3-day trip at the end of January where my snowshoe worked just dandy for the minimal stuff I needed to do for tent platform prep. I've never found it that difficult to get snow to melt, and I'd think a snowshoe or snow claw would be okay for moving snow off of a car. Digging a latrine, however --- that's situational, whether to blue-bag it or whatever, and depends on group dynamics as well. It's one thing that could help convert me to be more of a shovel-carrier, however. Have to think on that.
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