Cold wintery day on Jake's Peak

     We toured up Jake's peak this morning. As we arrived the air temperatures were well below freezing hovering around 15F and there was no wind at the surface at this time. At the trailhead there was about 1" of new snow @ 6300' on top of a variety of layers depending the aspect. In some areas there was buried surface hoar under the new snow but mostly dry noncompressible near surface facets was more widespread. We continued to climb and made it to the bench, now there was a 2-4" of new snow and more presence of newly formed surface hoar starting to grow; however, it was laying down and not standing up. Once we got higher above 8500' the winds slightly picked up and the surface hoar diminished with more wind effected snow to the top. As we reached the summit the winds were moderate with snow transporting from east to west. We could see large banners of snow off of Pyramid, Dick's and Jack's peaks. The air was way colder and the wind chill factor made for a frosty transition. The wind chill factor was also in affect on the way down, as you gained speed any bare skin felt it. The riding conditions were good below the wind effected snow for a while but quickly went back to dust on variable conditons underneath. On steeper slopes we did see some loose dry snow movement but was small and minimal amounts that did not build up. Other than that our party saw no other signs of instabilities or recent avalanches within the surrounding area.