Hornet Fire Lookout & Wedge Mountain

We dug a pit at ~6000ft on a NW aspect of Hornet Mountain. We were interested in how a recent severe wind event on Hornet affected the snowpack. We found a steep, yet low consequence, wind loaded, convexity to dig into. The slope angle was 43 degrees. We found that the pack was 435cm deep at this location. We dug down part way, recorded a pit profile, and conducted a test on the upper 175cm. ECT14 RP Q2 @ 423cm (12cm storm slab). We think this soft slab represented the snow accumulation of Jan 28th. It had been snowing consistently since 2pm on the 27th, but the snow tapered off slightly during the night and warmed up a bit. Creating this interface 12cm deep. This fracture was subtle and I tried to encourage the slab to release with a gentle shovel shear on the back of the block. The slab did not release, so I continued the test... ECT15 RP Q2 @ 405cm (30cm soft slab). This fracture was also subtle. When I pulled on the back of the block to shear the slab it released this time, and also encouraged a persistent slab release shortly thereafter. (@ 360cm Q1/Q2, 75cm thick slab) We believe that it is possible that this deeper slab might have been an MLK surface hoar layer, given the depth, elevation, aspect, and crystal characteristics. We skied less steep slopes adjacent to our pit site (25-30 degrees, W NW aspects) and had good stability. Deep, slightly upside down snow skied nice and easy in the low angle terrain. We also skied a steeper slope on Wedge Mountain to end our day. (30-35 degrees, south facing aspect, 6300-5000ft). We had excellent stability on this slope as well. The primary sign of instability we observed during our tour was while traveling on top of the ridge of Wedge Mountain. We had a sudden collapse that I believe was related to cornices near us overhanging the north side of the ridge. We were giving them plenty wide berth by staying lower on the south side of the crest, but in one spot we felt a sudden collapse. This did not result in a visible fracture however. After moving forward and looking back, it appeared that this collapse occurred in a part of the ridge where the cornices were more sizable. This was the only collapse we observed during our day.