Reactivity in Beehive

We toured up the ridge between Beehive and Bear Basin today. There was about 2-3 cm of fresh snow capping a breakable melt-freeze crust from yesterday. The crust was present on nearly every aspect and slope angle we traveled on (W-S-E).  I suspect on steeper east aspects, which we did not tour on, this crust may not have been present.

As we approached the cornice-triggered slide from yesterday below the prayer flags, we stomped around on a low-angle east-facing test slope just south of the slide to assess the presence and character of the slab. Stomping on the test slope yielded 15' plus shooting cracks from my ski tips and remotely triggered cracks about 30' further down the slope below a rollover. A subsequent test slope north of yesterday's slide produced a whumpf. A significant chunk of that cornice is cracked and ready to collapse. While jumping on the test slope almost 100 feet away from the cornice, a small piece broke off and fell onto the slope below.  

HS on the test slope was about 70 cm. Below yesterday's crust was about a 15-20 cm 4F to 1F slab overlying a pile of facets.  The failure plane was at the facet/slab interface and the slab has stiffened since my last time at Beehive a week ago. 

Wx: Calm winds, warm temps, broken skies giving way to scattered skies in the pm. No precip.