Quick report
We toured out to Gem Lake today via the Chair Peak North slope. The morning started out very clear, with almost no clouds, great views, and nice blue sky. It was quite warm in the sun, and south facing aspects were starting to warm up and shed roller balls by 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. we observed quite a few natural point releases and small loose wet activity, the largest of which were maybe large enough to knock someone over, although nothing ran further than 50 to 100 vertical feet. Most notably while ascending the Source Lake fan we watched a loose wet avalanche release from the rocks to the lookers' right of the Bryant Peak couloir and slide into the couloir with enough snow to cross the entire width of the couloir - that would not have been a great place to be skiing at the time. In the afternoon, the weather changed dramatically, with clouds coming in and all of the mountains above about 4,500 ft being fairly socked in. With the cold air temperature and the lack of sun, all of the Southern aspects that had softened up quickly refroze and were pretty crusty, although skiing on Northern aspects and shaded spots in the trees still skoed fabulously. We did not see any signs of wind slabs.