Naturally triggered avalanche between 12/29 and 12/30 on Jake's Peak

We parked at the turnaround where they gate Hwy 89 for the Emerald Bay closure, and skied diagonally northwest to ascend Jake's Peak.  The regular parking area was full so this was our alternative approach, with our goal being to intersect with the usual Jake's Peak skin track at the saddle near the Bench that is halfway up the regular Jake's up-track.  So our line of ascent took us diagonally across the main double avalanche path on the east side of Jake's, immediately south of the ridge that the normal skin track ascends.  You know how that avy path has two halves side by side, separated (at least for about the upper 50% of their length) by a slight ridge with tree cover.  What was striking about this apparently naturally-triggered slide was that it started within that tree cover and most of its run was through forest, emerging only for (roughly) the lower third of its run into the open area of the history avy path.  Location pin on the google map is approximate, as best I could figure.

Our group crossed the debris and noted the path of the slide, but did not actually get a direct look at the start or the crown.  We were in fact going to conclude that it was entirely a point-release, loose-snow slide based on the lack of slabby behavior we were seeing in the new snow throughout our ascent.  But then we ran into another group who told us they'd had a clear view of the starting location including a crown of unspecified height, and including the observation that it appeared to have started at the almost-buried tip of a small buried tree that was only as tall as the depth of the snowpack (plus or minus).   No skier tracks were observed near or through the starting zone or track of the slide so it was probably all natural.  Anyway, they did describe it as having a crown so perhaps there is indeed some slab formation in that area.

There was little or no new-fallen snow over the debris so it seems to have happened some time after the storm stopped depositing significant amounts on Jake's that night, perhaps early AM.

The striking thing about it, remarked upon by several skiers, was "wow, I might have picked exactly that line to ski, with the point being to stay in the trees and avoid the historic and very open avy paths on either side.  I could have intentionally skied those trees just to be a little safer, but now look how a naturally triggered slide started there and ran all the way through that very line."

Sorry this is filed a day late.

Also, we ended up skiing the smaller (looker's right) of the main two Emerald Bay chutes as our choice of descent, and after a lot of testing and ski cutting it became apparent that we simply could not get anything to slide or even crack.  Ski penetration on fat skis was around 8-10" due to density, but the layer of fresh snow was clearly much deeper than that.  Seemed like much of it had been wind loaded on from drifting over the top of the ridge in a north-to-south direction.  It looked super scary with the wind load pillows in addition to the natural convexities that exist, but after much testing and ski cutting it became apparent that nothing we could do would induce any slab-like behavior even in steep spots and rollovers.  Turned out to be ridiculously stable compared to how it first appeared.  Or maybe we were just really lucky...