Developing facets on N aspects

We toured the east ridge of Tamarack Peak today to look at snow cover and see if any problem layers were developing in the shallow snowpack.  There's very little snow cover on S aspects and terrain below 8500' in this area, but there was enough snow to travel on N and E aspects above 8500'.  We observed 1" of new snow overnight with signs of wind transport.  Surfaces under the new snow were firm and supportable on East aspects and punchy on shaded N terrain.  We dug quick pits in 2 locations on relatively open N facing slopes at 8900' and 9200'.  In both locations we found a similar snowpack structure with facets developing under a melt freeze crust in the upper snowpack.  In multiple compression tests, this layer failed easily with sudden collapse fracture character.  Although there's not much snow on top of it now, this weak layer could become a problem if we get significant snowfall this week.