Still finding poor structure, recent small wind slabs

We rode out Lionhead Ridge and around the north end to the head of Targhee Creek. Skies started overcast, but cleared through the day as wind calmed from moderate to light out of the west and southwest.

There were zero recent large persistent slab avalanches, and there were two or three shallow small wind slabs below Lionhead Ridge. The snow surface became moist, but crusts from previous warm days and cold night only softened slightly. There was very little, if any, wet snow avalanche hazard today.

We dug at the top of Lionhead Ridge on the south side of Airplane Bowl. 9,300', NE aspect. There was a 2.5' deep very hard slab (1f to P+) above soft facets (4F-), snow depth of 5 feet. We had ECTX, but with extra hits and some removal of the slab it propagated with a clean break. The persistent slab avalanche problem is becoming more stubborn, but not going away. For now it is not likely, but there is probably an isolated slope where you could trigger an avalanche, and we could see this problem arise again with more snow next week.