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Husker01 (Shawn), swturner (Scott) and I met at the Iowa Gulch winter closure at 0410 on Sunday morning. Although we had driven through some snow on the way, the stars were out as we began hiking toward the Iowa Amphitheater. We made good time and began our ascent through mixed snow and talus.
By this point low clouds had blown in and were hiding Sherman's summit and occasionally Dyer and Gemini. We made Dyer's summit shortly after 0700 and crossed the saddle to Gemini. As we ascended to Gemini's superior peak, a storm blew in and visibility went to crap. We wasted little time on Gemini's 13,951' summit and quickly crossed Sherman's saddle with 30 meter visibility. Summiting Sherman at about 0910, we took photos and made haste to descend via our ascent route.
TalusMonkey, swturner and Husker01 on the summit of Dyer (photo facing west):
The weather improved as we dropped below Gemini's saddle and crossed to Dyer. We did a simple descending traverse across the top of the Iowa Amphitheater. As the weather continued to improve, we found several short glissade chutes and got back on the snow covered road/trail back to the vehicles at the winter closure.
Our team on the Dyer/Gemini saddle with Gemini's double peaks on the left and Sherman's summit (in cloud) on the right:
During our early morning approach the snow from the winter closure to the base of Dyer was fairly well consolidated and firm enough to walk on the surface. On the way down at 1130 we postholed in many places, but were sometimes able to stay on the surface quite a bit. Our recommendation is to start early! The approach road still has at least 3 feet or more of snow on it and it will be some time before it melts out.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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