Day Two in the Ouray Ice Park

After a long night's rest in the most primo of climber bunk house digs, Jay and I grabbed a filling breakfast at the Backstreet Bistro to start the day out right. We grabbed our coffee fuel for the day and scrambled to the ice park to get our spot. Even for a Saturday, it wasn't too crowded. We walked the lower bridge and found a couple spots in the immediate area known as the Scottish Gullies.

Scottish Gullies

Jay and I made quick work of setting a top-rope anchor on a spot we both thought would be ripe for warmups. We checked the topo-map, shrugging off the WI5 ratings in the vicinity while I rigged my rappel setup. "Eh, we need to challenge ourselves and get the most from this trip." Jay obliged.

Peering into the gorge...

Rappelling into the [unknown at the time] mixed routes. Photo Credits: Jay

When I moved over the iced-up lip, I soon realized that we were not in the "warmup area" we had scoped out earlier. "Hey Jay... uhhhh there's no ice here. It's all rock, buddy. Maybe we should move the anchor." Turns out we rappeled right into the mixed route known as "Seamstress", a hefty M8 dry-tooling challenge -- not the way we wanted to start out the day.

 I ascended the rope and we carried everything over to the next anchor, rigged the rappel, and abseiled to the bottom of the gorge. Perfect. We had two route available to us on our top-rope:

• Nappy Dugout (WI4+)
• Dr. Delam (WI5)

Jay, being the swell guy that he is let me have a crack at the route first, even despite the fact that he was rocking his "brand knew" crampon setup and was probably chomping at the bit to test 'em out for realsies. I jumped on to the Nappy Dugout route to warm up the arms and legs. It was pretty straight forward with fresh chandelier ice streaming down its vertical slabs. There were a few mantling moves, nothing too out of the ordinary.

Jay made quick work of the WI4+ route, now with full front points to take advantage of -- his climbing ability juxtaposed against the day prior was night and day! Shyeah... Time to make up for lost time!

Jay and I traded belays and I jumped on to the Dr. Delam route. It started fairly easy, just the usual chandeliered fresh ice to chop through to find each pick placement, then it was up a ramp to the back wall of rock. Just to the right of the mixed beast route "Seamstress", this route typically only has some mixed moves through a rock band up high. Unfortunately, we had a ton of ice covering all these sections, so the spicy factor was pretty mild. Once on the back wall, I stemmed the chimney formed between the fat ice and the rock wall. Swinging tools was slightly difficult with the limited clearance once inside the small chimney, but there was plenty of fun hooking to be had. I had a blast in there!

Heading up the Dr. Delam route. Photo credit: Jay

Fun stemming! Photo credit: Jay

Taking a rest. Shakin' it out. Photo credit: Jay

Entering the chimney portion of Dr. Delam (WI5).  Photo credit: Jay
There's typically more rock to navigate through, but I got lucky.

Jay rocking the chimney of Dr. Delam.

Overlooking the Scottish Gullies, with the picturesque Ouray Ice Festival mixed comp route eyesore!
We climbed just to the left of there between the rock faces.

Five Fingers Area

After feeling the burn on our warm-ups, Jay and I packed up our things and walked downstream towards the Five Fingers area, hoping to keep the WI5 stoke alive! Unfortunately everything was crowded except for two routes at the very end. We dropped packs, and set a rappel anchor off some chains and chatted with a couple from the Flagstaff area (More Arizonans reppin'  in the ice park!).

Overlooking the quaint town of Ouray. Look there's Cascade Falls in the background.

Looking east into the amphitheater surrounding Ouray.

Jay took first rappel stepping over the edge. I waited for several minutes for the slack to return in the ropes so I could rig my rappel. Instead I heard Jay shouting a few things, one of which was "we are short on rope! Hold on!". When I finally got the go-ahead to rappel, I did the same and his dilemma immediately became apparent...

I was standing on a hanging pillar of ice, completely detatched from the wall, still twenty feet high of being attached at the bottom. I carefully walked down it, hearing it creak with every crampon point I sunk into it's surface. "Please don't break, please don't break," I continued to whisper to the ice. I stepped off the edge and let out a handful of rope so that I would swing under the pillar unscathed. Sigh o' relief. The giant pillar didn't come crashing down. Now that's confidence-inspiring ice!

Photo credits: Jay

I rappelled to the ends of the rope and tucked behind the ice near the wall to down-climb the remaining twenty feet to the bottom. We unanimously decided we would skip this route. We at least needed a longer rope. And there was no chance either of us was equipped to lead this thing ground up.

One last look at the right-most of the Five Fingers. We'll be back someday, my friends...

Gazebo Wall

With our tails between our legs, we wandered out of the Five Fingers gully and made our back to the Gazebo wall at the end of the park. I was still chomping at the bit to get on the intricate chandeliers that lie at the furthest end of the park that we saw the day prior. We rigged the top-rope and Jay "did his best" to drop the rope on an annoying lady who was literally sitting underneath our route as she watched her friendos. We were met with an array of "Owwww, he dropped the rope on me. Next time warn me! Wah wah wah's...". Even despite warning her, Jay still apologized like a gentlemen. By the time we both rappelled, their group finished climbing out of the gorge so we had the area to ourselves again. Thank you....

Our climbed routes:

• Percolator (WI4+)
• The Noise of Carpet (WI4, Jay led, I cleaned)

The top of Percolator (WI4+). Our route in mind.

My variation on the Percolator

The Percolator route was fun! I started on one of the thin hanging pillars, stemming to an adjacent pillar. Worked my way up to a ramp, then traversed under a series of hanging icicles to the main part of the route, climbing multiple bulges and stemming across several dihedral features. Fun stuff. I think my varied start pushed it more into the WI5 range, but I wont be too greedy, hehe...

Upper portion of the Percolator route. Photo credits: Jay

Jay had a crack at it. Unfortunately, I promised him I'd focus on belaying him and not on capturing the stoke of the moment, so I have no photos. But I swear, he smoked it.

I'm particularly fond of this area. We hardly saw anyone both days we ended up here.

Next, Jay volunteered to lead the way out. We pulled our ropes, racked up Jay's harness with the screws and draws, and swigged a few sips of water while I flaked the rope. He opted to lead the Noise of Carpet route (WI4). He bolted right up placing a number of screws for practice and anchored in. As he pulled the rope up, I readied myself, clipping everything left down below onto my harness. "That's me! Climbing!"

I seconded Jay's lead and cleaned the route. Textbook. We made it to the top and headed back for the Scottish gullies to climb some mixed routes before last call. Unforunately, by the time we made it over to the area, one of the park officials was already turning on the sprinklers for another night of ice farming. We walked back to the car with a casual stride, taking in the views along the way.

Photo credit: Jay

Main street, Ouray. Back to the brewery to celebrate...