On the 27th of October a storm brought around 10" of new snow to the upper Cottonwoods.  This was followed by some strong north and northeast winds that blew the new snow around.  While new drifts formed, there wasn't any significant avalanche activity.

On Halloween there was a light rime/rain event that formed a very thin crust at upper elevations.

The period between October 28th and November 11th was dry.  All south facing slopes again melted down to the dirt.  This was also a period ripe for near surface faceting which turned the snow above the mid-October crust into weak faceted grains.  This was most pronounced on northwest through northeast facing slopes but also included west and east aspects at the higher elevations.

There were two small impulses on the 12th and the 14th that added up to about a foot in the upper Cottonwoods.  This landed on weak faceted snow but was not enough weight nor did it have the right structure to form a slab that would propagate any slab avalanches. 

Another dry period occurred from November 15th to November 21st.  Southerly facing slopes again melted off and there was enough wind to stir things up forming scattered wind crusts.  Of course, near surface faceting continued through this period as well.

On November 22nd a storm laid down about 10" of snow in the upper Cottonwoods.  With very light density snow and absent much wind, again there was not enough weight nor the right structure to overload the underlying weak snow.  However, there were a couple of scattered collapses reported from the Cottonwoods indicating things were inching toward becoming unstable.  More significant was a human triggered avalanche in the Logan area mountains which received a bit more snow on the 21st and 22nd along with a bit more wind.  This avalanche failed on, you guessed it, faceted snow above the mid-October crust.

From November 23rd up to present, November 28th, we've had dry conditions.  A wind event has stirred up another scattered wind crust.  The two feet or so of total snow at the upper elevations of the Cottonwoods contains very weak snow on west through east facing slopes above 9000 feet or so.  In areas that were protected from the various wind crusts the snow is weak enough where a ski pole basket easily goes through to the ground and the tails of skis punch through deep while descending.  These areas are almost certain to produce some sort of avalanching once loaded properly.  Areas that have various crusts mixed in with the faceted layers will be a bit tricky and possibly allow more of a load to accumulate before failing.  The couple of collapses reported and the avalanche in Logan give us a little insight to potential future problems.

The snow profile below is from Cardiac Ridge in Cardiff Fork of Big Cottonwood Canyon.  There are many areas that have a similar snowpack structure.