Maverick Creek-Cottonwood-Flagstaff Creek

It was more wind affected than expected; several mid-storm natural avalanches were noted on higher elevation NE aspects. Some smaller creekside rollovers areas had also avalanched. Snow surface rode supportable but somewhat unpredictably. If you punched your track through the harder old snow surface, you'd essentially be on the ground. Snowpit was around 3 feet deep, with the bottom 1 foot composed almost entirely of well-developed facets that propagated easily (ECTP12). My thought is that not enough snow has fallen here yet to create widespread instability. However, more wind and additional snow will fall in the coming days and will continue to stress weaker snow, and instability will rise with these two incoming things.