Now! Climbing

With a good solid week out climbing with guests from as near as Indiana and as far as India, I can say everything around here is in pretty good shape. Check out a a few pics from the week! Here Dan fires the crux on the Camp Bird classic Slippery When Wet (WI4). With a few hundred climbs in the ice park and Cascade falls sitting above town you really don’t have to leave Ouray to find some ice to climb, but if you do, there’s some pretty good stuff out there.

Upper Ames Falls (WI4) in Ames, outside of Telluride was gushing in the middle but super fun on either side as Naime contemplates the send. That day we also climbed Lower and Middle Ames Falls and they were in great shape too, with the first two being a great warm-up at WI2 and 3 and the upper falls at WI4.

And of course there’s Ames Ice Hose if you’re ready.

This week though we stayed in Ouray and the first San Juan storm in weeks added some ambiance as we rapped Slippery When Wet.

We pretty much climbed all of the classics up on the Camp Bird road, including Chockstone Chimney (WI4-, Choppo’s Chimney (WI4), Senator Gulch (WI4), The Skylight (WI5) and a couple more.

Conditions in the Ouray Ice Park have also been great. Here Will fires a steep pillar in the Five fingers area.

Back out at the Skylight area, Dan cruises up the first step on the second pitch of Slip Slidin’ Away, another classic Camp Bird WI4, and below Mayur raps Choppo’s, also WI4.

Horsetail Falls is also in great WI3+/4- conditions, and Bear Creek Falls is getting climbed all the way to the top too! Cascade looks like it might make a comeback and so does Gravity’s Rainbow, and I’ve heard Bridalveil is still in nice and steep.

I’ll try to get some more pics up soon, but there’s a lot of climbing to be done, and with all this new snow we’ll have to get out skiing! So much to do.