Early symptoms of a persistent problem

We found increasingly complex and larger avalanche concerns as we gained elevation during today's tour near Essex. We traveled exclusively on northerly aspects and found:

• Storm totals since yesterday's cold front ranged from 2" at low elevations, 3"-6" at mid elevations, and 8"+ at upper elevations.  The fresh snow showed signs of moderate drifting above 6,000', with drifts up to a foot thick.
• We noted several soft slabs (both storm slab and wind slab variety) that failed during the storm, D1 to D1.5 at mid and upper elevations. 
• We saw minor cracking underfoot in windsheltered terrain, and produced some longer cracks and a slab release on wind loaded test slopes.
• At upper elevations, we got consistent propagating test results with moderate force on the near surface facets buried about a week ago (3/24 facet layer).  The slabs were 18" to 30" thick and 4F+ hard.   
• Given our concerns for larger avalanche potential at upper elevations, we chose conservative terrain until descending to mid-elevation terrain, where our tests suggested the buried weak layer was inactive and wind slabs were easy to avoid.  We skied steep terrain below about 6,300' with no signs of instability. 
• Ridgetop winds were light and we saw only a trace of snowfall during our tour.  We drove through a band of heavy snowfall on our way home along Highway 2.