Amazing riding but touchy slopes

As expected the snow quality was incredible. 40cm of fresh powder on all non wind scoured slopes. Even just a 1m slope was enough to shelter an area and leave great snow. Dug a pit at 1900m on a S slope around the Chuting Gallery and did 2 column tests. Results were nearly identical. Pop after 4 taps about 20cm down on a density difference. The top snow was not slabbed up and just sluffed away. 3 more taps gave the same thing about 40cm down, again the snow was powder. At tap 15 (ie 5 from the elbow) the whole thing failed on the crust 80cm down. Was able to pull the rest of the block off of the crust. Snow depth was 185cm