Ouray
January 2006
After ice climbing in New Hampshire last winter, we decided to return to Ouray in 2006. We made our plans early enough to reserve the Riversong Suite again and Rod and Angel were able to fly in from New Hampshire to join us. While they had lived in Colorado several years before ending up in NH, this would be their first trip to the Ouray Ice Park. We met up with them in Denver where we all spent the night at Will and Alison's before leaving bright and early for Ouray. (Ok, it wasn't actually that bright, but it was certainly early!)
We arrived in Ouray a bit before noon and were itchin' to climb. Unfortunately it was a busy Saturday afternoon at the park and there weren't too many climbs open close to town. We ended up lowering in over some WI5 climbs and proceeded to get worn out in a hurry! Definitely not the way to warm up in Ouray.
After settling in to our suite, we spent the next three days pulling down hard on the ice. Getting up at 5 AM each morning, we made a habit of being the first ones in the park each day. We mostly stuck to the areas offering lots of moderate climbs (South Park and New Funtier) so we could get in a fair amount of lead climbing and still toprope some more difficult lines.
Check out the following galleries to see some of the action!
