Balu Pass environs

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, sunny, warm

Ride Type

mellowSlopes, openTrees, sunnySlopes

Stayed Away

alpineSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

powder, windAffected

Avalanche Conditions

avalancheConditionSlab

Lovely Christmas Day around Balu Pass. We were surprised by the top 2-3 inches of snow texture which was wind affected and even felt a bit crusty. Ski conditions were still good but much different than the last few days of bottomless blower. Skinning up the Connaught Creek valley we saw a size 2 avalanche on STS that appears to have run between 12/24-12/25. The slide started ~100m below the cornice on climber's left of the ski line and ran full path. The crown did not appear to be overly deep but entrained a lot of snow. We got some isolated cracking on southwest aspects on kick-turn corners but other than that did not experience instability in our runs. We dug a hasty pit around 1m down and found a generally rightside up snowpack, with F hardness in the top 15 cm progressing to 4F for the next 30cm or so. We did not perform a proper pit or snow profile. Weather-wise, it was quite sunny for a majority of the day. Around 3PM it started to get cloudy and overcast. Near Balu Pass winds picked up around 2PM.