Snow on ice

Dug pit on west facing 15 degree slope at 2150m 125cm snowpack 30cm fresh powder sitting on an ice crust bottom part of snowpack had minimal faceting compared to last week attempted a ECT but snowpack was so hard/ice that we were unable to isolate column with rope CT failed CTH26 and CTM15 SP on two separate tests (20 ft apart) both on deep persistent layer at 65cm 65cm layer was knife hard and we were unable to saw parts of this very hard layer for testing