Observations from Jakes Peak.

We toured Jake's Peak today. Breaking trail on the upper 1/3 of the peak to the summit we were able to collect numerous informal observations from hand pits and trail breaking. We saw no signs of problematic storm slabs below treeline. We saw some old natural loose dry avalanches, but ski cuts on test slopes did not produce much in the way of loose dry today. As we neared treeline we started to see the first signs of wind slabs with minor cracking of the top 10 cm (4 in) while breaking trail. As we progressed to treeline and above we saw this wind slab increase to 15 cm (6 in) thick. We encountered more minor cracking up to 30cm (1 foot) but no long shooting cracks. Ski cuts on two wind loaded NE-E aspect features at the summit did not produced wind slab failures.

Signs of minor amounts of storm snow settlement were present, but this was tiny compared to the ~5 feet of new snow in the area.

Short periods of S2 snowfall today during convective cells. Otherwise clearing skies.