As the inside of the piece began to clear out, we were able to punch right through it with the auger.
 

But there was still a lot of shoveling ahead of us.
 

This was not really a fashion event.  The town of Breckenridge kindly provides team members with these excellent parkas, to avoid sculptors becoming frozen during late-night sessions.
 

As we approached the surface we switched from shovels to Stan's special snow rasps.  John Bruning handled a lot of that, and he did pivotal work in the center of the piece -- none of the rest of us could visualize what should happen in there.