Shredded Onion

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Wind affected

The day was:

• Sunny

We made the most of the blue skies and mild temperatures to sample the wind effect at the Onion. We found every kind of wind-affected snow, including wind-scoured, wind-rippled, and wind-stiffened snow (see photos). Luckily, soft snow can still be found in sheltered meadows.

We dug on a cross-loaded alpine SSE facing slope, where a layer of facets down 55 cm produced propagating results in an ECT.

We also dug on a sheltered ENE facing slope at treeline, where a buried surface hoar layer down 25 cm produced repeatable sudden planar results in compression tests but no propagation in an ECT.