Widespread Surface Hoar in Avalanche Terrain on Silver peak

We went to Silver Peak to see if surface hoar had formed on slopes during the cold clear night. As soon as we moved into open areas below treeline, we found widespread surface hoar that ranged in size from 2 to 8 mm. we found these feather snow grains all the way to the summit of Silver Peak. They existed in avalanche terrain and in low-angle meadows. On the way down we ski cut some steeper slopes and caused sluffs consiting of dry snow and surface hoar. We did notice that some of the surface hoar started to get destroyed on the most sun-exposed slopes, but it was still present and widespread on NW-N-NE-E aspects when we left the area at noon today. This surface hoar could become a problematic weak layer if it gets buried tonight. 

We also saw several previous wind slab avalanches on adjacent mountains while touring around Silver Peak. We could see signs of SW and NE winds along the Silver Peak ridge. We did trigger some small shooting cracks near the summit on a SE aspect but did not see any other signs of ongoing wind slab instability. Snowpit tests targeting wind slabs on a N aspect did not produce unstable results (ECTN). While we had the pit open, we also did a deep tap test on the most recent rain crust (buried on 1/14, now 1.5m below the surface). This test also did not produce any signs of instability (DTN).