still winter at the onion

Today we rode at the Onion. There was 10 cm of new snow that has improved riding quality. Sunny slopes are crusty while shady slopes are still holding cold snow. We dug on an east aspect at 1700m and found the March 31st melt freeze crust down 40 cm. During compression tests we were able to produce easy sudden planar results failing on size 2-3 facets above the March 31st melt freeze crust. We also did an extended column test and were able to get moderate propagating results on the March 31st melt freeze crust. We observed no new avalanches.