Observation: Red Pine

We dug a pit today on the north side of Red Pine Lake. The photo was taken at 2:06pm, with the camera facing almost due east (wall of the pit is facing west). I think you can see where it was fist, 4F, and 1F. Below about 20cm it was just totally sugary (fist hardness) faceted snow all the way to the ground. it was about 1F from 65cm to about 20cm, and then between 20cm and the ground it was less than fist hard; the snow just completely crumbled when you touched it. There looked to be about 15cm of fantastic powder sitting on top of a fairly firm sun crust that made for great riding. No signs of instability at all today, though we stuck to the hiking trail almost the whole way and kept to very low angle slopes.