Workers arriving early at the Ouray Ice Park on Tuesday found a disaster. A boulder the size of a pool table had sheared off the canyon wall and destroyed the metal walkway accessing the park’s popular ice climbs. And it ripped out the penstock that ferries water to the oldest operating hydropower plant in the […]
ice climbing
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Environment, News, Outdoors
At 25 years old, Ouray’s ice festival continues to foster — and anchor — the winter sport’s rise
OURAY — At the bottom of a cold crevasse in the Uncompahgre Gorge, where sunlight reaches but only a few minutes a day, the climb to the surface begins. The darkness is broken with the clicking echoes of steel penetrating ice. Slowly a small figure emerges on the icy wall, tethered by a rope. If […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
When people die in the outdoors, help for their loved ones is scarce. The climbing community aims to change that.
Death and injury are a part of climbing, much more so than most other sports. A group of Coloradans think it’s time to learn how to talk about it. For the climbers pushing boundaries in the sport, death is all too familiar. In 2017, top alpinist Ueli Steck fell to his death while acclimating for […]
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Outdoors
Climbing gyms are hot, but longtime climbers worry gym rats aren’t learning basic real-world safety
Long before Marcus Garcia had scaled the frozen faces of some of the largest mountains on Earth, he was an 18-year-old kid in a Dallas climbing gym. A fit athlete with little adventure climbing experience, Garcia was approached by an experienced climber who offered to take him on a trip to Eldorado Canyon, near Boulder. […]
Posted inEnvironment, Growth, News, Outdoors, Water
Ouray’s iconic ice park has a plan for its future that could be a blueprint for other troubled Western wonders
OURAY — The glassy tentacles of blue ice are ready. The cantilevered finish line — with some American Ninja-type obstacles to challenge the world’s top ice climbers — teeters over the edge of the frigid Uncompahgre Gorge. Not only is Ouray and its ice park ready for this weekend’s 24th running of its celebrated ice […]