How to Get Up After Making a Snow Angel


Thanks to the advice in our other post about making snow angels, you’ve created one that you’re truly proud of. However, with every other snow angel you’ve made, you tend to step on it when getting up. How do you stand up without crushing your newest snow angel?

The key to getting up after making a snow angel is to go slow. Sit up gradually, have someone take your hand if necessary, and look for a place to plant your foot away from the snow angel. Then move your other foot and step out. 

In this guide, we’ll present our top tips so you can put your best foot forward–quite literally, in this case–when making a snow angel without disrupting your beautiful work. If the worst happens and you do indeed crush your snow creation, we’ll also offer pointers on how to fix it, so make sure you keep reading!

How to Get Up After Making a Snow Angel

Not to put any pressure on you but standing up properly after making a snow angel is arguably the most important part of the entire process. 

After all, no matter how perfect your snow angel was, if you crush it or step on it because you lose your footing, then all your hard work was for naught. 

Keeping that in mind, here are our top tips for getting up after making a snow angel.

Don’t Work in Super Deep Snow

While you need snowfall of at least several inches for a snow angel to even be a viable idea, you don’t want to work in snow that’s extremely deep either.

If you do, then you might find yourself stuck.

You had an easy enough time lying down to make the snow angel but standing up is going to prove challenging.

You’ll scramble to your feet eventually, but likely not without disturbing your snow creation, possibly past the point of no return. 

Even if you had a lot of snowfall in your area, you can always shovel a few inches so the snow is closer to ground level and then make your snow angel.

All its many design intricacies will be easier to see and appreciate if the snow angel is nearer to the surface of the ground anyway!

Sit Up First

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to get up after making a snow angel is doing everything in one fluid motion. We’re talking about sitting up and climbing to your feet immediately. 

Why not take a moment to orient yourself upon sitting up? You don’t want to sit down for too long on your snow angel, as your rear can leave imprints and the pressure from sitting might obscure the shape.

However, a minute is okay. 

Look over the snow angel to the snow on either side of you and make a game plan for how you can escape. 

Ask for a Helping Hand If You Need It

It’s not only your feet you have to worry about when it comes to preserving your snow angel but your hands as well.

If you push a hand too sharply into the snow behind you, then you can pierce your poor snow angel right through the middle.

While you’re sitting up and deciding how you’ll get out of the snow, don’t move your feet and keep your hands in your lap. 

It’s best if someone is outside with you who can offer you their hand so you can grab onto it and stand up on your own two feet. 

If you’re outside by yourself, then you’ll have a harder time getting up without disrupting the pristine shape of your snow angel. You can preserve it, but you will have to brace your hands a good distance away from the snow angel to do it.

Step Out to the Side of the Snow Angel

Hopefully, you didn’t make your snow angel too wide, as you need to step out beyond its confines to escape.

Take it one leg at a time with your hand either in someone else’s or braced into the snow at your side. 

Once one leg is freed, lift the other over the snow angel and step out.

Clean Up the Footprints in the Snow

You can’t erase all traces of you having walked through the snow to make your snow angel, but you should remove the footprints nearest to the snow angel.

All you need is some powdery surface snow in the vicinity. Sweep it over the footprints until they’re gone. 

Voila, you’re all finished! 

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What If You Crush Your Snow Angel? Can You Fix It?

Now, we’re not saying following the above tips is necessarily easy, especially when you first start making snow angels. You might accidentally put a foot through the snow angel, or perhaps it’s a fist instead.

Darn. You had tried really hard not to, but now that you did, your snow angel is ruined. Or can you fix it?

You can always try fixing it! Here’s how.

Shovel Snow into the Hole

If you created a sizable hole in the snow angel with either your foot, your fist, or even both, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.

Take a pile of snow from elsewhere in the yard and use the snow to fill in the hole.

You should shovel surface-level powdery snow into the hole for consistency’s sake. 

If you take the snow from the pile you made when shoveling this morning or yesterday, that snow might be too hard and compact. The new snow will stand out like a sore thumb. 

Don’t grab shovelfuls of snow here. You only need enough to fill in the hole you made.

Once the hole is replaced with snow, use the backside of your shovel to level it off so the snow that you added is about even with the snow that comprises the rest of the snow angel. 

Use a Shovel to Add Snow Angel Details

What if you happened to step on the snow angel around its edges? 

Well, now your issue is a little more complex because it’s not only about filling in the open area with snow anymore. You have to do that while trying to restore the original shape of the snow angel.

Your shovel can come in handy for this! Use the front edge, side edge, or back of the shovel in an artful way to replace the curves and shapes of the snow angel.

This can take a bit of finessing, as you have to use a light-handed approach to get it right. You’re not trying to stab into the snow angel with the side or front of your shovel, just add to its shape.  

Decorate or Color It 

Okay, so you did your best, but your snow angel isn’t looking as perfect as it could have had you not stepped in it or put your hands through it. 

There’s no need to stress when you can cover your mistakes or otherwise distract from them.

One option we recommend is decorating your snow angel. Perhaps you take some glitter, some googly eyes, a scarf, a metal wire for its halo, or something of that nature and use it to add details to the snow angel.

You can also color the snow angel. As we talked about in our article on all the things you can do in the snow, the best colorant to use is food coloring.

Food coloring is safe so that if your kids want to eat the snow angel the day or two after they made it or if a wild animal happens to eat that snow, no one will get sick. 

Coloring the entire snow angel makes it harder to pick out any specific detail, including the area of the snow angel that you might have crushed or otherwise messed up.

When you combine food coloring and decorations, then no one will pay attention to that one less-than-perfect area, we promise! They’ll take in the details of the snow angel as a whole. 

Start Over

If your snow angel is truly squashed beyond any point of recognition anymore and trying to fix it didn’t pan out, then it’s okay to scrap the current snow angel and start over.

All you need to do is take some surface snow, cover the angel, and then spread the shoveled snow over the surface. Your canvas is now blank again for starting fresh. 

Final Thoughts

Getting up after making a snow angel is the most important step of the entire process, as doing it wrong can ruin all your hard work.

Even if you happen to mess up, snow angels are very often fixable, and if yours isn’t, it’s not too hard to start over. Your next snow angel will surely be even better! 

Geoff Southworth

I am a California native and I enjoy all the outdoors has to offer. My latest adventures have been taking the family camping, hiking and surfing.

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