Winter Mecca

Ouray Colorado has the biggest concentration of easily accessible ice climbs in the world. That's because they farm the ice (pipe water in and spray it down the cliffs of this box canyon). Luckily, Ouray is only 3 hours from Moab, so when its too cold to climb sandstone here, we pick up the ice tools and head east. There are literally hundreds of ice climbers here from all over the US and Canada. You'd think our northern neighbors would have enough ice of their own, but there really isn't a more accessible place to ice climb than Ouray. Clay and Leslie came with us, we stayed with Pete and Jacqueline on the way, and met two of my coworkers there.


Brian leading an easy climb in the Schoolroom. When you lead climb on ice you place 5" screws every so often for protection, then clip the rope to them.

Angela climbing a column. In rock climbing, your hands and feet grab the rock, but that doesn't work with slick ice. We use ice tools and crampons instead.

This is a shot of the group belaying. We climbed around 10 different routes total, but there are probably one hundred+ routes in Ouray.

Angela in black. Obviously it is cold outside, but the nice thing about Ouray are the natural hot springs in the middle of town. After a day of climbing we soaked in the 102 degree water.

This is another steep route that Clay and Brian (in yellow a ways down from the central pine tree) climbed.

Angela and Leslie at the base of a few routes. When you belay your partner you have to stand back from the wall a ways so that you aren't struck by ice the climber knocks down.

Clay climbing a column. One great thing about Ouray is that you can top-rope most of the routes. This is safer than leading, allows you to climb hard routes you might not otherwise lead, and is also faster so you can climb a lot of routes in one day.

Leslie swinging her tool into the ice.

This shot is of a random climber and provides a good view of the box canyon all of the climbs are in. You can't walk to the bottom of many of these routes because of water flowing down the canyon, so you are lowered in from the top, then you have to climb out.

Brian climbing.

The end of a great trip!