Advice on snow pics

Tomorrow I am going to Drakensberg for the weekend, hoping for snow there or in the Lesotho mountains nearby. I'm taking my passport, just in case.
What would be the best mode to take snow pictures?
I have a 17-85 and a 70-300 lens.
I like shooting in manual. I'll take the tripod as well but I guess that a lot of pics will be handheld. For the handheld pictures I'll probably use shutter priority to avoid camera shake.
If I shoot manual and I want depth of field, aperture around F16 ?

Sunny 16 rule

F16 with shutter speed at 1/ISO. Example My ISO is set at 200 so my shutter speed would be 1/200 at f/16. This is if it is sunny. Shoot in Manual mode. Bright snow can fool the meter and make your subject way too dark. If the histogram is showing blown out snow just raise the shutter speed a bit until it stops blinking.

Best mode? Manual for sure. Cameras are just too stupid to handle snow. It might sound funny, but it really is so. Expose so, that skin (or any other object you are after it) is exposed right, and snow will always be a bit overexposed, but you can't do much about it anyway. If you go just for snow crystals, then just dial +1/3 to +2/3 of stop compensation and you will be fine. With leaving camera to 0, your snow will be ugly gray color.
And one more thing... custom white balance, but take care that you change it, when going from sun to shadow or vice versa.

f/16 is probably too much for those lenses unless you really need that DOF. Try first at f/8 and f/11 the image will be sharper at those apertures and if that is enough for your DOF then great.
As Primoz said overxpose from what the camera meter thinks to make the snow really white.

Post #8:
can anyone give advice on how to take pictures with a 30D out in the snow?

I always dial between +1 and +1 2/3 to look snow white otherwise snow look gray. f8 or f11 should be fine.

Usually over exposing by 1 or 2 stops is best otherwise your snow will have that icky grey/blue look to it.

Thanks all.

I'll try to post my best snow pic here on Monday or Tuesday.

No snow...
I still took some nice pics though.
Thanks for the advice anyway.