Questionable Life Choices

Myself and an equally enthusiastic ski friend had decided conditions were good for an attempt to mission Skyline Trail in a day. We were surprised by repeat settlements on South West slopes above 2200m. Initially I thought it was typical rockies depth hoar in shallow (<50cm) snowpack at rocky ridge cresst and easily avoided. But then we got multiple 'whumphs' in deeper (1m+) snowpack on all SW slopes above 2200m, north of Big Shovel Pass. Digging down (hand, multiple spots) I found aprox 10cm moist well settled HN sitting on a 5cm knife ice layer (rain event? meltfreeze crust?) with facets (fist resistance) below the ice layer. So I think that ice-facet combo in the top 30cm was the source of settlement we experienced and fortunately settlement did not result in any avalanches or even visible cracking. (But it's possible it was Basal Facets, as I'm not 100% what was causing the settlement) Otherwise conditions as anticipated. 10-15 HN. BTL solar aspects had one or more meltfreeze crusts. 2100m+ on SE-S-S W aspects, HN was moist and well bonded to previous hard surface with point releases out of steep solar rocks. 2100m+up on N and NE aspects the HN was dry and skiing produced sluffing in very steep terrain and a small windslab pocket out of a cross loaded feature. Evidence of recent (48hours ish) Na Cycle, dry loose on N-E and some old cornice chunks below the Notch.