President’s Day in Ouray, CO

Sizing up Horsetail Falls (WI4).

February 16-18, 2013

So busy right now. Climbing, working, doing both at the same time, friends from the East Coast coming in a few days, etc. I unfortunately don’t have time energy to fully post about my awesome trip to Ouray, CO over President’s Day. Here’s a quick summary instead.

Took a trip to Ouray, CO over President’s Day weekend, which is a long weekend for me at work. Eric, Matt, and I went. Ouray is an amazing mountain town. It is a tiny little hamlet tucked into mountains well over 10,000 feet high. Snow and great weather made for some amazing views. We did some climbing just outside of town the first day which wasn’t too hard but a great position. Later in the day we had some fun on a dry-tooling route. Eric took a nice little ride from the chains. But he made up for it later by leading a really fun pitch of wet WI4.

2013-02-17_14883 — Matt headed up the third pitch.

Sunday we traveled down to Silverton and Eureka to climb Stairway to Heaven (WI4). Unfortunately our beta on the approach was a little off and we slogged through deep snow and decided to settle on Highway 66 (WI4). The valley was isolated, the sky was clear, and it was a great day to be in the mountains. Only burr in the shoe was another party that decided to do the same climb despite seeing us on it first. Long story but not worth getting into.

2013-02-18_14565--14570 — A look at the the mecca of North American ice climbing.

Sunday was a fun half day of top roping in the Ouray Ice Park. For the uninitiated there is a gorge essentially in town. Years ago people punctured the water line pipe above the gorge to farm ice in the gorge. Eventually the town realized they could capitalize on this and turn their town into a world-class ice climbing destination. Now the farming is sanctioned by the town and it brings in a tremendous amount of money for the town.

Great weekend with perfect weather and awesome climbing.