It was a great trip to Ouray this year, even if I did get sick for the end of it. It was much more a vacation for me than an ice climbing trip (although there was some ice climbed). I had intended to post mini trip reports while in Colorado but ended up distracted from the internet by everything going on, so I’ll do my best to recap the trip. The summary of the trip? Either all bundled up for ice climbing or not wearing much at all in the hot tub/hot springs. And I was either going all out climbing and partying or sleeping on the couch not feeling well.
Wednesday December 31: Leave Bloomington in the wee hours of the morning, drive to just outside of Denver. We spent the night with a friend of Ron’s, celebrating the New Year with a bit of champagne East Coast time before hitting the sack.
Thursday January 1: Finish the drive to h Colorado and spend the afternoon/evening relaxing at the hot springs at Orvis.
Friday January 2: Time for some ice climbing! Except that the park was crazy busy for the holiday weekend, something we failed to think about before hand. We eventually found an open line in the New Funtier which we both climbed a few times. It was a good mix of mostly easy ice with a nice short vertical section.
Saturday January 3: The park is still crazy busy. We hear from some other people that the first lines in the school room were claimed at 6am and they were all gone by 7:30 – even before dawn. We hopped on an anchor in the Graduate School but weren’t impressed with the line so packed up and headed down the park. We found a climb just outside the lead-only area. It was a good line although I didn’t climb the whole thing as it was sustained vertical and I knew I didn’t have the whole climb in me. I did lower down far enough to be exhausted by the time I reached the top, though. It was off to the pub after the climb for beers, meeting up with people and football. Sadly, the Colts lost. Happily, we made plans to sled the next day.
Sunday January 4: Sledding! This was the best day of the trip. We drove up Camp Bird Road past the ice park and met up with this awesome group of people. Gary had rounded up a bunch of sleds for us and then drove us about half a mile up the hill so we could sled back down the road. It was amazing. We were going almost thiry miles per hour by the bottom of the hill. Of course, I had a few crashed into the snow banks when I couldn’t quite make the turns. The sleds were awesome; they’re made by Mountain Boy out of Silverton, Colorado. We were on the classic flyer sleds most of the time. I did try a run on the slalom sled but it scared me a little; I fishtailed like mad in it.
Monday January 5: The people we were meeting up with for the week and the fest were starting to arrive in town while the weekend crowd had cleared out. We started on some easy routes in the School Room per my request. A couple of funny mishaps occurred that morning, but I value my friendships so I’ll just chuckle quietly to myself. We moved to an awesome line near the lower bridge area – Stone Free which is one of few natural lines in the park. It was a blast to climb – picked out and full of fun moves. A couple of people also jumped onto a nearby mixed line, but I didn’t have that in me.
Stone Free is the line to climber’s right of the tree at the top of the cliff. Tic Tac runs up the middle/right side of the visible rock face.
Tuesday January 6: This morning was a bit of a slow start for me. I met up with people a bit later in the morning and hopped on Stone Free a couple of times. I watched some people climb the nearby classic mixed line Tic Tac and took a few pictures.
Wednesday January 7: This was the day of hardest climbing for me. And, incidentally, ended up being my last day climbing. I started off on an ice route near Tic Tac with someone belaying me from below in the canyon. Someone shouted down to everyone in the canyon that the water level was about to rise. I climbed the end of the route much faster than I had intended to and was a bit tired and full of adrenaline at the end. I belayed my partner out of the canyon and we belayed from the top for the rest of the day. We never saw the water level rise, although I heard that it did rise a couple of feet at the end of the day. After calming down from our hasty exit from the canyon, I hopped on Tic Tac. I didn’t climb the ice at the bottom but made it up the fun mixed part (thanks in part to a very helpful belay). I sat on the rope a bit, including while someone led past me on the line immediately to climber’s right. I actually freaked out a bit when he knocked a large chunk of ice onto me. Thankfully, he was right above me at the time so it hadn’t picked up a lot of velocity, but having a large chunk of ice hit your lap is unnerving, to say the least. I hopped on another ice line to finish the day.
Crystal on Tic Tac.
Thursday January 8: I was starting to feel a bit under the weather – very congested and my leg was aching – so I decided to stick around the house and nap. I was energized at the end of the day and ready for an exciting next day. First, though, we were having a party at the house. We threw an awesome dinner and dance party as it was the night everyone was in town. In fact, we had a more hopping dance party with better music than would be hosted as part of the fest in a few nights. It was so hopping, that someone ended up with a dislocated toe, which was a little disturbing.
Friday January 9: I had been eager to get on ice again the previous afternoon but had agreed to go skiing at Telluride with a friend instead. It was a good decision. I always forget how much I love skiing. We stayed on easy routes but had fun, including skiing an awesome blue route through the woods and finding a green route with no one on it. The day of skiing was a blast but I was already starting to lose my voice by the end of it. I crashed on the ride back, though. I went from feeling a little under the weather to miserable. I ended up spending the night at home, missing the silent auction, although I had company for most of the night.
Saturday January 10: A day to sleep in and rest and curse my cold. I did walk up to the fest to see the vendor’s tents but didn’t have the energy to stop and examine things. I watched a bit of the comp but have never been big into watching other people climb. I napped in the afternoon, trying to marshall enough energy for the evening. I did take myself to the live auction and then to the dance party. Both of which were amusing because I had completely lost my voice. At least there was nothing I wanted to bid on. Sadly, I felt I couldn’t go sledding that night as the cold mountain air and my throat and chest congestion didn’t seem like a great combination.
Sunday January 11: Time to start heading home. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive but was actually vacationed out and ready to be back. We drove to Boulder after an airport stop in Montrose. I was able to watch the premier of 24 with an old climbing partner from Indiana who used to always come over to the house to watch the show with my housemate and me which made me very happy.
Monday January 12: A late start Colorado time and some crazy winds in Kansas put us in the middle of Missouri around 10ish and ready to crash in a hotel room.
Tuesday January 13: Back to Bloomington around midday and I manage to squeeze in seeing a few people before saying adios to my climbing partner and driving to northern Indiana to spend the night with my parents.
Wednesday January 14: Back to Ithaca. Glad to arrive and tired.
