Stiff Wind Slabs on Andesite Peak

We headed up to Andesite Peak early this morning. Based on the forecast we expected to find wind slabs and blowing snow. Driving up, we could see already see blowing snow and some new cornices on roadside slopes. We skinned up through protected terrain and could see the clouds blowing across the sky above us, but did not see significant wind effects in the below treeline sheltered terrain. We did notice some small settlement cracks around trees. 

Once we got into more exposed near treeline terrain, we started seeing obvious signs of wind-loading like blowing snow, cornices above slopes, ripples and wind-sculpted surfaces, and drifts/pillows of wind-blown snow. We picked our way up into more exposed terrain using low angle slopes and found a few small wind-loaded test slopes. The first one we tested had a large cornice above it. I stood off to the side and watched while my partner kicked at the edge of the cornice well back from where it overhung the slope. It broke with a single well-placed kick and dropped large refrigerator-sized blocks on the slope below. These cornice pieces also caused some small cracks in the wind slab on the slope below. 

We continued over to another slightly larger test slope. I approached it starting from the lower angle smaller side of the slope while my partner watched from farther back. As I stepped onto the wind-loaded (but still low angle) part of the slope, I triggered a shooting crack that went out about 25 ft in front of and behind my skis. I moved back and dug into the slope to see what this wind slab cracked on. It was a dense (1f) wind slab sitting on soft (F) snow above a thin crust. The wind slab failed on the soft snow below it just above the crust. Then my partner and I both jumped on the slope at my crack and it broke out into a steeper part of the test slope and slid. 

We continued up and looked at some larger wind-loaded slopes from safe areas on the ridge and did not see any natural avalanches. We chose to stay in lower angle terrain and avoided getting on these larger wind-loaded slopes.