Wolverine Basin.

The snowpack below treeline often felt quiet, and hasty hand pits showed a mostly faceted snowpack with some 4-finger hardness remaining in the slab (these observations came from full-depth snowpacks without previous avalanche activity).  Stronger winds near the valley bottom transported some snow recently, so there could be an isolated feature with a recent slab at the surface.  Steep slopes with previous avalanche activity presented an obvious Dry Loose problem and were easy-to-trigger, so it was worth mentioning and looking out for.

Drifted slopes with a fetch had recently formed Wind Slabs (often resting above Persistent Weak Layers) that are sensitive to a person's weight and worth avoiding, particularly on slopes with a large fetch.  

We didn't assess deeper Persistent Slab problems near treeline on steep slopes but chose to avoid skiing an east-facing slide path as we didn't want to enter to find out and didn't know the season history of the slope.

Obvious signs of instability were confined to wind-loaded terrain along the ridge that we ascended.

We didn't encounter slab avalanche concerns while we were in wind-protected slopes up to about 10,500ft. The wind was transporting snow at valley elevations, so you could find a cross-loaded slope at lower elevations too. Once we gained the ridgeline and moved into wind-affected snow, we encountered a stubborn wind slab avalanche problem. These slabs were thick and often difficult to budge. Once we got higher on the ridge and targeted a few areas that had a bigger fetch, we started to get a little more feedback. We triggered one windslab, got a few collapses on other wind-loaded terrain features and saw several shooting cracks. The slabs appeared to taper fairly quickly on the slopes below and were often 4 to 10 inches thick. 

These wind slabs appeared to be most reactive on ESE to SE-facing slopes, where they formed on a thin collapsible crust that was created during last week's warm-up. This crust had small facets above and soft 1.5mm facets below. This weak layer is something to keep an eye on (see image below).