sastrugi

1. Long, wavelike ridges of snow, formed by the wind and found on the polar plains. Sastrugi are usually up to several meters high and are often parallel to the prevailing wind direction.

Example Sentences

After two kilometers, we arrived to find only a sastrugi ridge, pockmarked wind deformations in the icy crust.

Read more on Salon

But the most difficult part of the journey, she said, was hauling her heavy load over sastrugi — wavelike speed bumps of snow and ice that can extend for miles.

Read more on Seattle Times

All day, on skis, they each hauled sleds holding 220 pounds of gear across fields of ice waves called sastrugi.

Read more on Seattle Times

By now, Roberts has guided or overseen numerous expeditions for Cooper, to the frozen ocean of the North Pole—where storms press the pack into “screw ice” and the wind forms sculpted ridges called sastrugi—and to the parallel universe at the extreme south.

Read more on The New Yorker

Rudd hauled a 140kg sled through 60mph gales, temperatures below minus 30 degrees celsius and over sastrugi – wave-like ridges created by wind – surviving off a grazing bag of chocolate, nuts, cheese and salami.

Read more on The Guardian