A nice day out in Balu/Cheops, the Balu Pass skin track is mostly in with about four/five creeks still open with only small crossings.
We toured up to Balu pass, the sneak across to the Cheops side of Balu pass doesn't go, with a lot of sharks hidden just below the snow (hopefully the incoming top up will solve this). The skin track up Cheops ridge was a mixture of dodging wind drifts and rock gardens, it probably needs another 25-50cm to make the journey easier on your skins.
The early afternoon sun was hot and the snowpack in the sun quickly became heavy/wet and showed some reactivity with sluff and pinwheels off the skin track. There also was a layer of surface hoar in most of the open areas that we observed, it will be interesting to see how the sun plus the new forecasted snow interfaces with this layer over the coming days/weeks. In the bowl there was between 5-15cm of cold unconsolidated powder, sitting on top of a crust about 1.5cm thick the depth below this crust was varied, with plenty of sharks around (new skis not recommended).
Snow depth at the car park was between 10 and 20cm. From the final climb to Balu pass and in the Bowl it was between 50 and 80cm depending on wind deposits and the usual early season rocks and trees.