When choosing where to dig a snowpit, textbooks and instructors say to look for safe and representative sites. ‘Representative’ meaning a slope with same angle, aspect, & elevation as the slope we want to hit; provided that location is free from the influence of trees. We consider this distance as far away from the base of any tree as that tree is tall (i.e. ≤ ∠45º from the pit site to the top of any nearby tree).
We imagine an idealized, ‘general snowpack’ which local terrain features influence. Trees create aberrations from this general snowpack and data from sites near trees is aberrant thereby skewing our understanding of the general snowpack. This is bad for the forecaster and hazard evaluator alike. Or is it?

Here in California’s transverse ranges—with a few exceptions—we ride in treed terrain. Further, it’s rare to find a clearing wider than surrounding trees are tall, let alone a safe one.

If we plan to ride treed slopes, is it not at-least “O.K.” for the hazard evaluator to choose pit sites near trees? Granted, we hazard evaluators (riders) would do our best to find “wide-ish” clearings with neither branches overhead nor shrubbery underneath. It seems to make sense that treed slopes are more representative of other treed slopes than clear slopes are.
Are sites with trees (and pockets of instability) just as likely to test false-stable as false-unstable?

It should be noted these data are not useful for the forecaster for whom the idealized snowpack is, in the words of Austin Powers, “his bag, baby.” Treed-slope pit-data would only be useful for evaluating hazard on a particular slope, on a particular day.

I know it’s not ideal. I’m trying to play with the cards I got dealt. Or am I spinning my wheels and pits in such places a crapshoot and waste of time?