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A group of us met in Frisco on Saturday evening with plans to ski the East Face of Huron on Sunday. As luck would have it, the weather system that had been affecting the Rockies for the past several days had stalled and was not expected to move out until Monday. We abandoned our plans for Huron and started bouncing around ideas for alternative routes. We finally settled on the Citadel as this was close by and offered some interesting skiing. Since snow showers and cool temperatures were in the forecast for Sunday, we opted for lazy morning and a civilized 9:00 am start.
We skinned directly up the ridge from the parking area in order to get a bonus descent into Dry Gulch.
The snow was fantastic on this mellow gladed slope - much more like mid-winter powder skiing than spring stuff. We put skins back on and motored up to the saddle below the Citadel. The face we were to ski is just to the left of the smiling face under the red hat.
We pressed on towards the granite towers. Our party fragmented on the ridge between the towers, with half electing to start their descent from the easy access at that point.
Three of continued and and traversed onto the face in order to dig a pit.
There was at least 12" of reasonably well-bonded recent snow, so we thought we would give it a go. There is a short but steep snow gully to climb
and then a bit scrambling to the summit.
We enjoyed some views from the top before dropping in.
I was given first tracks honors and started with a couple of ski cuts. Everything felt solid, so I pointed 'em and enjoyed a few face shots in the deep pow. We took the line all the way in to the basin, where the rest of our party joined us.
After a short skin back to the saddle, we enjoyed yet another great run through the glades back into Dry Gulch.
We ended the day with a nice cruise down Dry Gulch and then a few strides back up to the cars. Overall amazing conditions for May!
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