Finally trying to get the rest of Ouray trip on here.


Thurs. we went out of the park to check out some routes on Camp Bird Rd. Its a mountain road just outside of town. Things were going okay until we were going up one steep section of icy road and we lost traction.





After sliding back down hill a little ways the car started to turn sideways and stopped. After some sideways pushing we had the car pointed downhill and we went back into town.






















 I'm often far too determined for my own good, so once back into town we stopped at the hardware store looking for tire chains.

After getting the chains installed we finally made it up the road to the cliff we were looking for. Posers Lounge is a chossy cave just above the road with a handful of reasonably difficult routes.

After the problems getting to the cliff I only had enough time to try a couple routes. I was hoping to get back after the comp but it didn't work out.

WOW!!!!!

I have been running behind with updates, but I'm going to jump ahead.

 Today was the competition. I climbed 5th out of 17. There were 18 originally but someone was disqualified for illegally previewing the route. I was surprised that there were only 18 as in the past there have normally been 20 competitors. This year people came from as far away as Eastern Europe.

The route started on one side of the gorge and climbed up to and across an ice bridge that crosses the gorge to the far wall. Most everyone made it to the ice bridge. Many people fell crossing the bridge. I knew I was doing pretty good when I crossed the bridge and got established on the far wall and the crowd went nuts.







Getting onto the far wall was the hardest part. Once getting established it was just a matter of hanging on while searching for the holds. Fortunately most of the places it looked like there might be a hold there was one and I topped out, establishing myself in first place.

 

















 
 


 

12 more people were still to climb after me with the best climbers still to come. I thought 3rd was the best I could do since I was certain at least two others would top out faster than I did.

Luck was on my side, the two competitors I was most worried about made mistakes and fell off. One other person topped out 6 seconds behind me. Slowly people were eliminated and my guaranteed spot kept moving up until I was 1st.

I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Nothing to loose and everything to gain. I climbed my best and didn't make any critical mistakes. I still can't believe it!

Wed. was a rest day. I went out with Bec and John and shot some photos and video of them climbing. From there I went back into town and had a walk around. I ended up back near the ice park and went to Box Canyon. 

 

Tues. I started to ramp it up a bit. After climbing an ice route to warm up then I got on the drytool route Seamstress. I was a little worried it might be too hard for the end of my warmup but it went well.

From there we got on a short drytool route. Bec climbed it her first try on toprope and John did really well for not having much experience drytooling.

After getting warmed up I got on a route called Chinese Water Torture. It went pretty well until I got a little sloppy and popped off after trusting a hold I should not have. It would have been great to get it first go, but on new rock the learning experiences I get from failure usually teach me more than success.

After CWT we went upstream to get away from the crowds. Near the upper bridge we did a couple of long ice routes.

I was pretty tired, but I needed more practice so to finish off the day we went back to where we had started so I could get on a line I had been looking at. The Mighty Aphroditie climbs a discontinuous seam up an overhanging butress to a thin curtain of hanging ice. John patiently belayed as I slowly worked my way up the seemingly blank wall unlocking the moves. By the time I got to the ice my forearms were so pumped I could barely swing my tools into the ice.

Monday we were back in the Park trying to get acclimated and adjusted to the rock. I got on a couple of drytool/ mixed routes as well as some steeper ice routes. The rock is very different from limestone. Its very shattered and difficult to see the holds.

At the end of the day we did a super fun mixed route that climbed out of a little ice cave.

Just posted today.

http://ourayicepark.com/2012/01/03/2012-ouray-ice-festival-competitor-line-up-announced/

Sunday morning after checking out Ouray Mountain Sports we went up to the ice park. Walking over the upper bridge and looking 130' down into the narrow gorge was like looking into an abyss. The park is amazing. Coming from Ontario and all of its issues is mind blowing how accepted climbing is in Ouray.

The Park is a very popular place so we had to walk up the gorge to find someplace open to climb at. The section of gorge we ended up at was only 40- 100 feet tall.

I led two routes and Rebecca and John followed them before I went back down the gorge to get some mileage toprope soloing while Bec and John climbed a couple more routes near where we started.