Cold at Keith’s

Our party of 3 spent two nights at Keith’s (thurs 11 - sat 13). We skied laps on the anniversary glacier on Thursday and Friday, and then summited Vantage Peak and skied the N bowl on Saturday. We found amazing snow in both zones - cold smoke powder up to knee deep. The Vantage ridge was seriously wind scoured and required an alpine scramble. On sheltered slopes the snow showed no signs of instability. However, the ridgetop winds were pluming on Thursday and Friday, and it seems a natural wind slab cycle to size 2 occurred in steep exposed terrain on Thursday night when the winds peaked. Surprisingly we noticed fresh crowns on a range of aspects, which kept us on low angle, sheltered terrain. Anniversary glacier is still showing some holes on the climbers left side, and the view over the Matier is still pretty wide open and didn’t tempt us to inspect more closely. Twin One and Mt Howard also looking thin.