Warming Conditions on Incline Lake Peak

We toured throughout the Incline Lake Peak area today.  Temperatures were much warmer at the trailhead than the cold morning temperatures found in town.  2 to 4'' of recent storm snow existed in this area with sunny skies and decreasing NE winds.  Most terrain in near and above treeline areas were scoured down to older snow surfaces with many areas being firm wind board and wind sculpted snow.  In below treeline terrain, soft snow existed in wind protected areas that made for good travel conditions.  We did not see any signs of buried surface hoar throughout this area by digging multiple hand pits and not observing any cracking around our skis while skinning.  We did see many areas of recent wind slab development along ridges from the recent NE winds.  Most of these wind slabs were small in size with localized cracking.  The largest wind slab we encountered was up to 8'' deep, very dense, and stubborn to trigger.  None of these wind slabs extended very far downslope.