The Shovel That Beat the Snowpocalypse and Saved My Back
With the help of the Mountain Mover shovel, the two of us, taking turns with it, cleared the entire 12-by-5-foot deck in a couple of hours. I’m not exactly sure how the physics of it works, but the curved handle made the scooping-and-tossing-snow-over-the-railing motion far easier than I remember shoveling being when I was a kid. And my partner—who, at 5-foot-10, is half a foot taller than me—definitely appreciated the BackEZ EziMate Handle that we’d attached to the shovel.
One of my colleagues, senior staff writer Kimber Streams, agreed. “As a person with back problems who typically can’t do any shoveling, the shovel and handle combo was an absolute godsend,” they said about using the Mountain Mover shovel during the aftermath of a blizzard in Buffalo, New York. “The grip encourages a lot more core use and a lot less back use, which meant that I could help clear several feet of snow off the balcony without hurting myself.”
Doug found it works similarly well for seniors: “I set up my father with the ergonomic shovel and an add-on handle, and he told me, ‘Without that shovel and handle, your 83-year-old father simply would not be able to shovel snow anymore.’”
After that Mammoth storm, we did make the mistake of trying to dig out a couple of buried plastic deck chairs using a small aluminum avalanche shovel, which shattered the arm of one chair. Next time, we’ll use the Mountain Mover—its blade is polycarbonate, with a nylon edge, and it might be easier on what lies beneath the drifts.
Former Wirecutter senior staff writer Eve O’Neill also praised the material the Mountain Mover shovel is made of. “I can’t do a lot of damage with the edge of the Mountain Mover, so I also use it to scrape snow off the car,” she wrote in 2022.
