yeah, it's pretty unstable when it's got somewhere to slip. Digging the path to the backyard wasn't too bad, but since I wasn't even going to try clearing it down to grass, it's now a slidy path. However, I'm not tramping through snow up to my knees so I think it's a fair compromise. The sun may stabilise the edges of the trench a bit, which will help.

I just bundled up and dug out the plow hill at the end of the driveway, and that was slippy, as the end of the driveway is new snow on top of packed snow. But at least delivery trucks won't get stuck in the three feet wide by ten inch high pile of snow there.