St Mary's noisy old pow

Went for a walk in a new area not expecting great skiing. After ascending a lovely slope full of alder and blow down we got to some well spaced trees with patches of breakable sun crust and dry snow. Once we gained the ridge it turned out we were at the entrance to a north facing slope that was steep but not too crazy. We dug a quick hole in the snow at 2240m and had a look for the deep persistent problem. The top 20 was good soft snow over a well settled midpack that got progressively stiffer as you went down. The very bottom was sugary BS but only under the crust. Compression tests revealed no fractures. Putting all the info together we decided to ski it one at a time and were rewarded with great pow and no signs of instability.