A snow shovel features a support sled, an inclined load blade having an upwardly and rearwardly tapered shape; and up-turned and in-turned side walls that converge in the tapering direction of the load blade. An up-turned and front-turned rear wall cooperates with the side walls to form a forwardly open pocket at a rear end of the blade. The converging side walls and rear pocket compress the snow as it rides up the load blade, whereupon an increased density of the tightly packed snow encourages gravitationally unloading of the shovel through an avalanching action. In use, the leading edge of the shovel is tilted upward as one approaches an intended dumping area in order to ride up onto remaining fallen snow, during which the collected and densely compacted snow avalanches off the leading edge of the shovel to simultaneously build and climb up a snow heap at the dump area.