Balu Pass Avi Ride
Quick reportSunshy · Nov 8, 2025 · Glacier
Quick report
- Weather
- cloudy
- Ride Type
- steepSlopes, openTrees, mellowSlopes
- Riding Quality
- ok
- Snow Conditions
- crusty, hard, wet, windAffected
Always wanted to check out Smart Minor? We made a trail for you. Great snow conditions on the way up. Thin crust underneath surface hoar above 1900 m (which skied fine). No instabilities encountered all day but it's all below treeline. The avi path we skied had already run so the ski down wasn't good until halfway down. Beautiful day though. If you intend to ski anything up there, do it soon, we put a reasonable uptrack up the treed shoulder to the "summit" which should save you a ton of effort. We used hip waders for the creek crossing.
Incident
- Group Size
- 4
- Terrain Trap
- cliff, trees
- Group Activity
- skiing
- Number Injured
- 0
- Number Involved
- 2
- Number Caught Only
- 1
- Number Fully Buried
- 0
- Snow Depth Trigger Point
- variable
- Terrain Shape Trigger Point
- convex
- Number Partly Buried Able Breathing
- 1
- Number Partly Buried Impaired Breathing
- 0
Skier 1 dropped in just below Balu Pass (NE facing) where its steepest and a bit rocky. Looks wind loaded. He stopped on top of the rocky cliffy bit (top of dark blue spot). Skier2 (teal x) dropped in, triggered the slope and skier 1 went for a ride over the cliff, came to a stop 50 to 100m lower. Half buried, had pulled his avi bag, and wasn't injured beyond bruises. He lost a ski. The crown is 1-2 feet, at least 50m wide, and it ran to where it flattens out. Small slope, but skier 1 was lucky to not get hurt in the cliffs or trees. ...windloaded, steep, rocky feature. The sliding surface looked like a really smooth surface, our first day out and didn't go investigate but some windslab or crust.