Ran up for a little sesh in the sun today. Started off at -4 degrees in the parking lot and slowly warmed a little. We decided to stay low elevation/low angle today with all the sketchiness and wind. So, I dug a pit at about 7400' in elevation on a north-east facing slope. My angle was pretty low. I didn't even measure but would guess it was around 22 degrees. I measured around 2 1/2 feet of snow on the ground that had a nice thick crust about 8" down and a faceted mess about a foot from the ground. It was hard to even dig without the pit walls giving way. I finally got a sheer face and ran a compression test with a clean fracture at 8 taps from the wrist. Clean shear at about 12" from the ground. Extended column test didn't make me feel any better either. I had another clean shear at 12" from the ground with 10 taps from the wrist. (ECTP 10 Q1) We had already planned on staying low angle but this just confirmed to us that it was a good idea. The snowpack is still really low and we found lots of stumps and downed trees today that made riding pretty scary. But the top 8" of the snowpack rode really good. We just need another foot or 5 to fill everything in. Hopefully it will come soon so this snowpack can begin to heal.