Small soft slab avalanches and poor test score

We dug a pit on a protected ne facing slope at around 8750', got ECTP5 ~25cm down on what I thought was NSF, but may be the surface hoar layer reported on GNFAC page. We also got an ECTP21 on facets near the ground and stuck with our plan of skiing low angle terrain. On a few small steeper rollers/micro terrain/logs we released 4 small avalanches on the layer closer to the surface. The biggest slide we triggered was maybe 10-15ft wide and 1ft deep, and we continued to avoid any larger connected terrain where a bigger slide could be possible. We didn't see any activity on basal layers while out, and at Cabin Creek 2 days prior we did not find these layers of concern in our pit or while skiing or snowmobiling, but the S facing slope we were on mostly were more exposed the wind, weather and moderate snowmobile tracks.