Chasing winter to the Duffey

<p>A mix of spring and winter conditions over the last 5 days at Keith's Hut. We heard lots of large loose wet avalanches and ice falls when temperatures soared early in the week (Sun/Mon). Tuesday's storm was very warm and windy, then cooler temps and spotty flurries on Wednesday and Thursday left about 20 cm of creamy snow above a moist snow / crust interface. We saw one large natural slab avalanche on Wednesday evening off a sub-peak of Matier that ran surprisingly far down the glacier (see outline in pic). The avalanche was just storm snow running on the crust, and was either triggered by wind loading or sluffing out of the cliffs. Otherwise the new snow seemed to be bonding well to the crust/moist snow interface. We approached steep lines cautiously, but didn't find any signs of instability while skiing. Can still find face shots in the alpine. Cornices grew bigger over the week, but weren't breaking.</p>