All Fun and Games in Ouray

The ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Ouray ice sea­son has shaped up to be one of the best years for ice climb­ing. The snow came ear­ly here in Col­orado, mixed with cold tem­per­a­tures it was the per­fect rem­e­dy for fan­tas­tic back­coun­try and ice park climbing!

Pho­to — Marc Ripperger

Son­dra and I (Marc Rip­perg­er) enjoyed guests from all over the region span­ning from Flori­da to Cana­da. Every­body comes to Ouray to learn how to swing tools or tick off some of the famous back­coun­try ice routes. We had a lot of fun teach­ing an intro course to new climbers cut­ting their teeth on over 225 dif­fer­ent climb­ing routes inside Ouray Ice Park. You can see from the pic­tures it is a lot of fun and games here in Ouray, from stomp­ing around in the snow and rope hearts, to seri­ous ice climb­ing. We have expe­ri­enced quite a diverse win­ter from 18 inch­es of snow in 24 hours in Jan­u­ary to t‑shirt weath­er in February. 

Pho­to — Marc Ripperger

But per­haps most of all, it was a joy to help climbers improve their tech­nique on the ice. We saw some MM climbers go from zero expe­ri­ence to float­ing up back­coun­try ice climbs in a mat­ter of 3 days! Oth­er MM climbers chose to use Ouray as a train­ing ground to sharp­en their ice skills for some alpine objec­tives like climb­ing in the Ruth Gorge in Alas­ka or steep alpine ice routes in the Cas­cades. We saw many spous­es and sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers come out to the park to watch their part­ners climb and then have time togeth­er in the evening to soak in the hot springs or go out for a nice din­ner- even bet­ter then climb­ing in the Alps!

Pho­to — Marc Ripperger

If you come out to Ouray you have to enjoy at least one day back­coun­try climb­ing. The city of Ouray plows the road up to the Camp­bird Mine which is an active min­ing spot through­out the year. Keep­ing this road open allows us easy access to some road­side back­coun­try climb­ing with only a 15 minute walk. Up at Camp­bird you can choose your own adven­ture, whether scratch­ing around on some mixed routes or climb­ing low angle ice, there is some­thing for every­body. The best part about Camp­bird are the stun­ning views of U.S. Peak and the after­noon sun­shine to warm you up after com­ing down from a route.

Pho­to — Marc Ripperger

If you did­n’t make it out this year there is still time! Back­coun­try climb­ing around Ouray will be extend­ing well into mid March- so if you still need a taste of win­ter, come on out! 

Oth­er­wise, check out a wide range of ice oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Cas­cades this sum­mer, includ­ing ascents or the Alpine Ice Climb­ing Course.

~ MM Guide Marc Ripperger