Dust on crust in Meiss Meadow

Arriving at the parking lot around 08:30, the sky was broken to overcast with well below freezing temps and very light winds to start the day. While traveling to Meiss Meadow there was maybe a few inches of new snow at best and was mostly in protected areas. Right away there were signs of widespread surface hoar on all aspects and small thin windslabs along west facing slopes below treeline. We came across a perfect inconsequential test slope that was facing 295 degrees West on a 45 degree slope. Our ski cut produced the release of a 12" windslab that slid on the firm rain crust just below it. The slab was dense at the top and really soft near the interface of the new/old snow. Moving along, we reached the ridgeline and the surface was scoured of any new snow and was supportable. On the descent we did get a few good turns (a few!) in a protected gully heading down towards Meiss meadow. We contoured around to a north aspect and dug there. The pit location was protected but had obviously been previously windloaded as the snow depth was 120cm in this location. Compression tests had very planar results below a crust layer 20cm down from the surface followed by propagation wtihin the ECT on this same layer; however, there was no other results within these tests within the rest of the snowpack. By this time the wind had picked up and there was now visible snow transporting from SW to NE on the slope above us. Cloud cover ceiling started to lower and the storm was pushing closer, very light snow started to fall around 13:30. There was no other signs of instabitility along our journey.