Slabs surprised us!

We did a tour out past Ginny Lake to the north facing bowl above the lake.  We mostly toured on a couple of inches of new snow on a very firm crust.

We were surprised to find that a slab about 15cm was very easily sheared off when we did a little hand pit.  We then dug a test pit and we found the same result with an ECTN5, with a very planar shear. Just for kicks, we pulled the remaining column with a shovel and it took a lot of force, but sheared very planar at about 95cm from the surface.  We didn't notice any instabilities while touring, but there was significant settlement around trees (see picture)