There was about 20cm of facets at ground level and a wind crust observed with 40 cm of snow on top of it.
After reviewing the video of our test
it appears there may have been a fracture at the wind slab layer during the “hard” taps that was not noticed while conducting the test. It formed at the same time we compressed the column down to that layer and did not appear to propagate across the entire column in the video.
The test was conducted at a slope of 45 degrees in an open patch in tree line.