Ice Climbing, help the Ouray Ice Park, and Guides continuing education

It was a great sea­son as always in Ouray, Col­orado this past win­ter with a full assort­ment of climbs and cours­es. We want to thank all who joined us, from Kate, who did her first mul­ti-pitch ice route; to David who con­tin­ued to pol­ish his skills for big­ger climbs in the moun­tains, and every­body else that enjoyed a great sea­son on the ice, tak­ing in the ameni­ties of Ouray, and push­ing lim­its and learn­ing new skills.

And hats off to MM guides that knocked out addi­tion­al train­ing for them­selves com­plet­ing an Amer­i­can Moun­tain Guides Asso­ci­a­tion Ice Instruc­tor Course, con­tin­u­ing the process of becom­ing the best guides in the indus­try. Jake, Kyle, Sharon, Tagg, Peter, and Alex all com­plet­ed the course — congrats!

It was not all smooth sail­ing at the Ouray Ice Park this win­ter though. At the end of the sea­son a blow to the park came in the form of a 12,000 pound rock­fall, which knocked out a water sup­ply line and dam­aged the tres­tle, the main entrance to the area. With less than $5,000 to go of their $100,000 goal, we encour­age you to donate to help this non-prof­it Ouray Ice Park reach their goal and be able to fix the water sup­ply and the trestle. 

DONATE HERE

With funds and some hard work, the park will once again be up and run­ning for the 2021 – 22 sea­son. In the mean­time, if you did not get enough ice, or none, last win­ter, no wor­ries. Sum­mer alpine ice in the North Cas­cades this sum­mer should be ideal.

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What is the difference between the frozen waterfalls of Ouray and for example, the North Ridge of Mount Baker?

Water­fall Ice:

• It is gen­er­al­ly cold­er, some­times A LOT cold­er, deter­min­ing not only your enjoy­ment, but also the type of ice you will encounter. With temps in the 20s-30s Fahren­heit you may encounter ​“hero ice,” which is the kind of ice pro­vides easy to get, sol­id place­ments for your tools and ice screws. But, with tem­per­a­tures in the let us say the 10 degrees above to minus 20 Fahren­heit this can change dra­mat­i­cal­ly to hard, brit­tle, or chan­de­liered ice, all which can make get­ting good place­ments that much more difficult.
• Water­fall ice on the more tech­ni­cal sec­tions always requires two ice tools and set­ting them over­head with aggres­sive swings, what as the French call pio­let trac­tion. Cram­pon­ing is gen­er­al­ly using front points only, although occa­sion­al rest steps you are able to get more points in.
• In sum­ma­ry, the tech­niques used on frozen water­falls is some­what dis­tinct to this medi­um when the ice is at a 50 – 90 degree angle.

Alpine Ice:

• On the Cas­cades clas­sic ice routes such as the North Ridge of Mount Baker rarely are there water­fall ice con­di­tions encoun­tered. Routes like the North Face of Mount Shuk­san, or the North Face of Mount Buck­n­er or Maude, take place on ter­rain the 40 – 60 degree angle, with usu­al­ly frozen snow the medi­um. As a result, dif­fer­ent tech­niques are used and only occa­sion­al­ly will you be using your ice tools over­head in pio­let traction.
• Cram­pon­ing tech­niques also vary from French tech­nique, which pro­vides mul­ti­ple or all points on the ice, or an Amer­i­can hybrid tech­nique using one cram­pon in French and the oth­er front pointing.
• While there is some cross-over in tech­niques used, it can be said that alpine ice and water­fall ice tech­niques are different.

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Do you need to have skills of each type to do one or the other?

Absolute­ly not, but it always helps to have as many skills as pos­si­ble. On the North Ridge of Mount Bak­er you will tran­si­tion from alpine ice climb­ing tech­niques on about 40 degree slope to a 1 – 3 pitch sec­tion that you will use water­fall ice tech­niques as you work your way up the ice cliff sec­tion mid-route. On a route like the North Face of Mount Buck­n­er you’ll use pure alpine ice tech­niques as you ascend a con­sis­tent grade of steep­ness over the 1,000−2,000 foot route. While a rock climber may enjoy the vari­ety of moves, the alpine ice climber enjoys the rhythm, the pre­dictabil­i­ty of each move and an increased abil­i­ty to move effi­cient­ly as a result.

What to do now:

• Donate to Ouray Ice Park
• Check out some of our Cas­cades alpine ice routes and the Alpine Ice Climb­ing Course
• Take advan­tage of the exper­tise of our guides.

Ice is Nice!