Snow profiles were sampled along an east-west gradient in wild reindeer home range from winter ground in the east to calving ground in the west. Hardness to ramsonde at Finse (west) increased from 22 to 359 kg from early to late winter; hardness in the winter habitat (east) increased from 40 to 140 kg in uncratered areas and from 15 to 27 kg in cratered areas (p < 0.01, t-test between west, uncratered and cratered areas). Density increased from 0.20 to 0.37 g cm-3 in early winter to 0.40 to 0.55 g cm-3 in late winter prior to melt off (p < 0.01, t-test between areas). Hardness measured with the spring penetrometer increased from 200 to 400 g cm-2 in early winter to 800 to 1000 g cm-2 in late winter prior to melt off in cratered areas. The ramsonde was used to measure the windhardened snow and the spring penetrometer to measure soft snow. Pawing rate (strokes per minute) decreased linearly with increasing density (Y = 0.54X + 20.3, r = 0.96, p < 0.01) and exponentially with hardness (g cm-2) (Y = 52.7 - 6.94 ln X, r = 0.92, p < 0.01). Significantly different semilogarithmic relationships between density and hardness were found in cratered areas and in uncratered areas. Wind-hardening influenced snow structure more in uncratered than cratered areas. Crater depths decreased inversely with increasing density (Y = -8.08 - 22.86 ln X, n = 8, r = 0.8, p < 0.01; and hardness, Y = 61.23 - 7.58 ln X, r = 0.83, p < 0.01) restricting reindeer to the upper zone of the Loiseleorio-Arctostaphylion healths. Collapse of snow structure in May in the low alpine zone was the major factor accounting for reindeer movement into the middle alpine zone where there was a supportive snow cover but more restricted grazing areas.