good stability on N aspects at 9000 ft in N. Gallatins

We skied two North-facing lines in the Northern Gallatin range on Wednesday ranging in elevation from 8500 - 9700 ft with some slight West and East flavor. We saw no signs of instability and set off a couple large sluffs in the top 8-12" of snow and some wind-loaded pockets breaking 6-8" deep. I dug a pit and did a CT and ECT and got CT15 on new snow 30cm deep and CT28 on a layer 45 cm deep. Got ECTN16 on same 30-35 cm deep new snow layer. The interface with the old freeze-thaw layer below the new snow did not show a very high quality fracture plane / bed surface for the upper new snow to slide on. the freeze-thaw layer was about 1-2cm thick but did not feel it while skiing. Upon pulling on ECT column with shovel, broke on 45-cm layer with poor quality and also on basal facet layer at ground. Overall right-side-up snowpack density going from fist to pencil hardness pretty linearly. Total depth of snow 210cm. Depth of new snow from last storm approx. 12-16". 9600 ft NNE aspect.