Persistent Slab Instability

Around 5" of fresh snow lay on top of the snowmobiles this morning in Cooke City. We rode up to Daisy Pass to visualize terrain and got eyes on Crown Butte. On the north side, we noted the crown of a wind slab avalanche (R1 D1) that broke during the storm cycle. We then rode back down and toured up Henderson Mountain along its SW flank. Skies cleared throughout the day and allowed for great visualization of terrain north of Cooke. We got eyes on Miller Ridge, Crown Butte, Henderson Bench, Scotch Bonnet and Sheep Mountain; we did not note any other avalanches outside of the small one up on Crown Butte. We saw extensive cross-loading in the bowl of Henderson Mountain and on Miller Ridge. 

We dug snowpits on SW and S aspects on Henderson. We noted buried facets a little over a foot deep on our pit on the SW and we got an unstable test result in our snowpit on the S aspect (ECTP 25) on a facet/melt freeze crust sandwich. 

Most notably, as we entered non wind-effected, upper-elevation terrain on Henderson, we consistently triggered many localized collapses and heard audible whumpfs, indicating persistent slab instability.