Divide Peak snowpack

I toured up toward Divide today, mostly just to get out and take a peek at the snowpack. The storm overnight dropped 10-20 cm up high, and it was getting moved around a fair amount by the wind. 
 

I dug my first pit on an east aspect at 8900’. The snow was 165 cm deep here, and there was a visible dark band 20 cm down that was pencil-hard and 1 cm thick. I got an ECTN13 on this, failing on a thin layer of facets just below the harder snow. I also got an ECTN 17 on another thin layer of facets another 20 cm down. When I filled the pit in, the top 20cm readily came off of my extended column, and the rest stayed cohesive to the ground as I tipped it over, save for the rotten stuff at the very bottom of the snowpack. 
 

I dug another pit at 9550’ on the SE aspect of Divide. This one was 145 cm deep and had a similar structure to my first one, and gave me ECTN14 and ECTN18 on what I believe to be the same layers, although the firm band of snow 25 cm down didn’t have as obvious of a layer of low-density facets beneath it. I did get a clean, fast propagation 60 cm down at ECTP22. The slope I was on was only 28 degrees, but I bailed to head home and eat cheesecake instead.