In my travels today I dug mainly on north and north east facing aspects at 9500 feet and above. I found the snowpack in this area to be mainly made of faceted snow. At the surface was a thin rime crust (easily breakable) with small grained facets below. The entire snow pack is made of faceted snow in this area and as you move down in the snowpack the grains only get larger until they are full blown fist hardness depth hoar at the bottom.

I performed many extended column test and did not have any results. The snowpack is lacking a slab or more cohesive stronger snow above. I still wouldn't trust getting into steep northerly terrain for now. The chance of finding a slab is too much of a concern and I kept my distance from large, steep, northerly upper elevation terrain based off of what I found in the snowpit. The total depth of the snowpack was 85cm.