One last view as we head out of town! Amazing experiences and unreal beauty! I hope to come back to Ouray many times!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Ouray mountains in snow
One last view as we head out of town! Amazing experiences and unreal beauty! I hope to come back to Ouray many times!
Ouray Ice Park
Matt and Fish with the old dynamite shed in the background. This building was built in 1890.
Ouray Ice Park... Dental Floss
I am posting a lot of photos from this climb because the ice was SO scenic on this route, and it really was quite impressive to see him against the massive scale of all that ice! Beautiful and unreal!
Ouray Ice Park... Dental Floss
The final climb of the trip. Just to the left off the lower bridge is a challenging flow called Dental Floss. I had a great view of this climb!
Elk Horn Cabin
Our cozy abode for the trip Elk Horn Cabin at the Riverside Inn. Their sign had a chainsaw carving sculpture of an ice climber... nice!
Ouray Ice Park... Berserker
At the top of Berserker! A very beautiful climb! It was fun to watch and must have been fun to climb too!
Ouray Ice Park... Berserker
The whole climb from the bridge! Fish on! He is the climber in the middle, closest to the bottom.
Later, back in the Park... Berserker on the way home
After the climbs out on Camp Bird Mine Rd. Fish and Matt were still wanting more ice! Luckily the Ice Park was right on our way back to town! They decided on a sweet route next to the bridge, and started gearing up immediately.
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO
There was another party of climbers out there that day. Here is a group attempting a mixed route, next door to our 2nd climb. They were climbing up the larger chunk of ice, then to the left across the rock wall, and finally up the wedge of ice at the upper left of this face. It was entertaining to watch them go at this!
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO... 2nd climb
Fish on belay duty as Matt leads the route. The base of this climb was right at the road.
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO... 2nd climb
Matt leading the second climb out Camp Bird Mine Rd. By this point in the day it was snowing hard and starting to pile up around us!
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO... Choppos Chimney
A view of the entire climb from the road. We were standing at the base of the waterfall while the climb was going on. We hiked up the snowy hill and stomped out a flat area right at the base for belaying and amazing viewing!
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO... Choppos Chimney
Going through the eye of the needle at the top of the climb. It was such a narrow gap that he had to leverage himself off of bare rock at this spot.
Camp Bird Mine Rd...Ouray,CO...
A view across the canyon from the base of the Chopless Chimney climb.
Camp Bird Mine Rd... Choppos Chimney...Ouray,CO
The next day we all drove about 11 miles out of town up into a large, very scenic canyon. The Camp Bird Mine Road is a scenic route into the high mountains above Ouray in the Summer, and in the Winter it becomes a sheet of ice 2 inches thick, lined with frozen waterfalls. I hiked up with the guys for the day to watch them climb some "wild waterfalls". This was their first climb, called Chopless Chimney!
Ouray Ice Park.. Kim... final climb
This climb was so intense for me that I did not have the patience to pause for a photo when I reached the top. I sure wish I had now, but then.... I was ready to stand on solid ground again! I was very pumped about completing this climb. When I looked up from the bottom I had NO idea how I was gonna get this done! The best advice I got all week?? "Keep moving!" Really.... it works!
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