Looking for a location with favorable exposure for a ‚snow pofile‘ - a pit dug vertically into the snowpack to observe snow layering and perform stability tests.
Sometimes, enough information about the snowpack can be gathered without ever taking out the shovel. But usually the only way to get information is to dig.
While digging through the snow masses, one can already find snow formations of bigger chunks that can be comfortably dispatched without the shovel.
By running the fingers across the face of the snowpit wall, the structure of snowlayers is sensable. Weak layers crumble away, strong layers remain sticking out.
Thickness, hardness, temperature and snow granularity of each layer is noted for later transferal into the Avalanche Warning Information System LAWIS.
The stability of a bare layed block is tested by increasingly tapping stronger with the shovel. These test results are further used to classify the snow profile.