Ice climbing and telemark skiing - Ouray and Durango

What an eventful past couple weeks!

I'm not in Alta, Utah, and I never went there at all. Tim and I are fighting and he went out there alone. I was sad and pissed but what's a girl to do but go out and have the time of her life?! My friend Kim invited me to head 6-7 hours southwest down to Ouray, CO to go on their annual ice climbing party. They got there last Wednesday, but I was dog sitting for my friend (a 7 month old brindle great dane puppy, he's bigger than Logan and SOOO sweet!) so I didn't know if I'd manage to get my depressed butt in gear and go down there. My friend ended up not needing me to watch Lhotse (the dog) on Friday so I decided last minute to pack up my telemark ski gear, cold weather clothing, and my dog to go meet up with Kim and her friends. The infamous Jim Detterline, known as the hardcore park ranger of Chuck Norris proportions, sets up the trip every year. I thought there were only going to be a handful of people; was I ever wrong! There were probably at least 25 people total, from all over the country that met up down there.

Since this was a last minute trip, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with Logan. The kennel up here in Estes raised their prices and an informal search online showed that it would be much cheaper to board him in Montrose, about 30 minutes north of Ouray. I dropped him off on Friday afternoon at the Montrose Veterinary Hospital and intended to drive back up to get him Monday, then drive down to Durango to visit my friend Maria. I arrived in Ouray 30-40 minutes later and was soon sitting around in the San Juan Chalet's Cabin with Kim, her friend Hobbs, and Hobbs' girlfriend Amy. It was a small 1 bedroom "cabin" with, thankfully, a very comfortable futon that Kim and I shared. It did have direct TV and a hot tub, but mental note: Don't stay here again. We had to ask for more towels and the girl that dropped them off gave me a dirty look and didn't say a word to me. The price was the same as a much nicer place, The Box Canyon Inn, which is where Detterline has always stayed for all the years they have been doing this trip. They even have a bunch of small, hot springs tubs out back, which our group (the only people at a different hotel) cheerfully walked the short distance between our Chalet and the Inn and clambered up the snowy steps to indulge. It was a full moon evening, without a cloud in the sky - always the best way to enjoy hot springs inthe cold winter! Another thing to keep in mind is that if you join the Ice Climbing club or something, you get 20% off a lot of the local hotels and sometimes a discount on food - always a nice perk!

From Ouray ice cli...

My second ice climb ever, at South Park

Kim, Hobbs, Amy and I woke up early on Saturday morning and met up with some of Kim's friends from another room - Chris, the pharmacist from Dallas; Jeff, the ER doc at the Estes Park Medical Center; Scott, who apparently works at the booth at Rocky Mt NP, though I've never seen him; and Norm, whom also works seasonally at the park. We walked from the Inn up the road to this narrow gash in the earth. I didn't realize that this was a man-made ice park, where water is sprayed like a continuous chain of waterfalls every night, turning the side of canyon into a long, extensive ice climbing heaven! It was pretty awesome, to say the least. We got to the "crampons and helmet required" point and everybody geared up. Of course, I'm poor and didn't want to rent anything... So everybody else had the standard plastic boots and climbing helmet, while I donned my plastic telemark boots (not nearly as rigid or as good, but it worked!), borrowed one-front-point (and dull) crampons from Detterline, and Kim's brand new insulated ski helmet. Everybody else had non-bulky soft-shell jackets, which I totally need to get when I can afford one; I had my huge snowboarding jacket and ski pants. In other words, I was the goofy looking newbie. :)

We hiked back to one of the farther sections of the canyon, called South Park. The guys set up all the top-ropes from the top of the canyon, while the rest of us hiked to the bottom of the canyon to climb. It was pretty busy, and looked almost like being at an indoor climbing gym. But we managed to set up 3 or 4 routes and everybody took turns climbing, belaying, and sitting around. It was pretty cold but not too bad (it had been windy, snowing and even colder the day previous). My very first experience ice climbing was at a short but very vertical route on the closer end of South Park, and two people set me up with a crash-course in ice climbing technique. I did have my own harness but I also had to borrow Kim's ice tools. It's quite a different experience with sharp pointy objects in both hand and both feet, and the possibility of falling ice is very real (which happened this year to Chris, but he didn't get messed up too bad). The told me how to swing and kick and away I went! And I did pretty darned good for never doing it before; at least, I surprised them with how quickly I did it. Yay! So I ended up being better at ice climbing then telemark skiing, that's for sure! I think I did 3 or 4 climbs all day, compared to the veterans, who did at least 7-8 climbs each. It was so much fun! Kim and I got tired and cold by 1 or 2 pm and left everybody early, opting instead to buy Bailey's and Jameson and drink Irish coffee while relaxing in our room and watching 3 hours of Medical Mysteries on Discovery Health. :)

We're tough!

That night we all met up at the Outlaw for dinner downtown, but this place is expensive!! And with a party of 20+, they tack on 18% gratuity... So I ordered my food at the bar while the majority of the party was later than expected. The baked garlic spread and the spinach dip were both really good, but I couldn't see myself spending $17 for pasta so I opted for chicken tenders from the Kiddie menu... and for $7, I probably had more food on my plate than those that spent more than triple the amount I did! I met some more of Detterline's friends, including an older guy named Steve that is at this moment in Argentina to climb some insanely high mountain. They're all hard-core climbers and some of them seem just about as nuts as Detterline himself - and I say that with much admiration. :)  Did I mention that Kim and her friend Philip - both of whom are currently completing med school - did a 3 hour tumor-removal surgery on one of his 20-something year old Copperhead, while it spit venom into a tube over it's head and was "anesthetized" by making a snow burrito around it and taping it down to acoffee table?? And the snake is still alive?? Yeah, they're all crazy. :)

After dinner, we went back to room 120 at the Inn (apparently where they stay every trip) and watched a Detterline Slide Show, showing ice climbs in all parts of the country. This too is apparently tradition. Afterwards we all just went to bed for another early morning of climbing; not too much partying or drinking going on with this crowd! The next morning (Sunday), Kim got up early but I was congested and didn't feel all that great, so I opted to sleep in. Hobbs and Amy decided to leave that afternoon instead of on Monday, so they just packed up and left. I finally made it out to the Schoolroom part of the ice park, where Kim, Norm, Jeff, Scott and Chris were already climbing. The ice here was different from South Park, and one route had a hanging ice "fang" that Scott and Chris were doing some crazy stuff on. My first climb here was longer than anything I had done at South Park, and it kicked my butt! I guess it's rated WI (water ice) 4, which is kindof hard for a beginner... but I made it to the top eventually, forearms burning! Norm led a route up another section and that was my 2nd and only other climb I did that day, and I did much much better on that one. i think it would make a huge difference having crampons with two, sharp front points like almost everybody else had. All the guys were very encouraging and supportive and took about a gazillion photos of me. :) We were done by around 4 pm and everybody was exhausted!

For dinner, our little group made burritos and watched Green Bay lose (boo! So, go New England I guess!!), then Kim and I were the only ones motivated enough to walk up the steps to the hot springs. Somehow the boys eventually got off their butts and 6 of us sat in a small, brand-new cedar hot spring tub and just let our muscles melt. The best thing for me is that even though my knee is still messed up, I could climb on it with no problems! But everything from my lats to my butt to my forearms and abs were so sore!

The tub started feeling a little too hot (I'd swear it was getting hotter!) so we all got out and were lazy until Detterline showed up to show an ice climbing video. After 20 minutes of all the boys trying to figure out how to make the VCR work, I decided to take care of it... and just grabbed the little "How to make the VCR work" instructions that were on the table and handed it to them. ;)  We watched some European dude do some crazy stuff on ice all over the world, and then it was bedtime.

Monday morning was when I was going to leave, Kim was leaving by noon, and everybody else was staying another day or two. I decided NOT to pick up Logan, because to drive back up to Montrose and then down the 2 hours to Durango would be silly. I said goodbye and headed down 550, over Red Mountain Pass - an awesome drive! Old mining structures and avalanche warnings everywhere. I met Maria at her cute Victorian home in Durango and we got dressed to immediately leave for Purgatory (now called "Durango Mountain Resort" but the locals still call it Purg), where Maria teaches snowboarding and was able to use a free pass for me. It would have been boring for her to hang out on the green runs while I try to learn how to tele, so to my pleasant surprise she decided to rent some tele equipment and learn with me! The runs at Purg are strange compared to Breck and those other resorts; the greens would be nice and mellow, but because of the stepped formation of the mountain, every once in a while we'd come across a steep part we had to zoom down. Which would be easy on a snowboard but when you're learning something new, it seems like you're going so fast!! But by the end of our 4 hour stint, we were both doing almost-real telemark turns and it was so much fun! Our quads, butts and knees were, once again sore (not to mention that my knees were black and blue from ice climbing!) and after a nice lettuce-wrap snack/dinner that Maria cooked up (pork, water chestnuts, ginger, bamboo and very messy!) we went over to the Trimble Hot Springs and paid our $13 to soak in their hot pool. We had it to ourselves for a little bit when we got there (around 7 or so) and we were sharing it with maybe 10 people by the time we left. Gosh it was sooooo needed by my aching body! I'm still sore today!

We went home around 9 and spent the next couple hours swapping music; hence, I am currently addicted to Brandi Carlile. :) In the morning, we completed my whirlwind visit by getting coffee, breakfast and using the bathroom - the pipes at Maria's froze AGAIN, poor thing! - downtown. It was a short visit but full of so much fun! Durango is definitely an awesome place full of activities for every season. Some day, I'll hopefully get down there to do some mountain biking!

Then I began the 8-9 hour drive back to Estes, going up 550 back past Ouray into Montrose to get the Log Dog. I didn't think about it at the time, but if we had gotten any snow, there were probably 2 mountain passes that would probably have closed and I wouldn't have been able to get to Montrose! In fact, as I went over Red Mountain Pass they had a rotary clearing about 200-300 ft of road that had been avalanched over. But I made it to Montrose, got my knucklehead dog, and drove back to Estes. What a great trip!

Then yesterday (Thursday), Kim took me for my first ski tour trip into the park. We just went to Nymph Lake, which I believe would be 3 miles round trip, and I needed to borrow her skins to get up to it from the Glacier Gorge parking lot. However, the skins wouldn't fit the tips of my skiis and had lost their adhesive! So we found some medical tape and tape both ends of them; then we ran out of that and taped it up with duct tape and crossed our fingers. Climbing steadily uphill, it was tiring and those skins added a lot of weight (not to mention the drag of the tape in the snow) to my skis, but we did make it there. Just in time too, as almost all of the tape had come apart on my skins - though the medical tape did amazing hold up better than the duct tape. We took the skins off and skied down the narrow trail - and snowplowing the whole way down was so tired, yet again, on my butt! There were a couple of times where I was going faster than I was comfortable and thought I was going to crash into a tree or rock, so I fell over. :)  Then, we had to herringbone up this short steep little bit, and I was just falling all over my own skis. It was pretty hilarious. For the most part though, it went really well! Though my knees are still sore from all that tele-ing down in Durango.

That's my latest adventure. I don't have any more exciting trips planned for the next couple months besides maybe skiing in Summit County and Eldora. My sink decided to welcome me home by once again freezing up; when I tried to run hot water to melt it, my pipes started leaking and then exploded all over the floor. I just threw down towels and went to the bar; I'm so NOT in the mood to deal with that kind of crap right now! The landlord is still trying to work something out, short of digging up the entire pipe. What a pain!

Tonight is the "Brrrr-grass Ball" at the Rock Inn and there should be a good band playing. I'm working on finishing a couple paintings for the Valentine's Day art fair at the Rock; the first one is the profile of a mountain lion. I'm not very far into it so we'll see if it turns out as well as the wolf painting. Anyway if anything else exciting happens I'll update; but I think it's about time I hibernate in a little ball in my thick down comforter and not wake up until April! ;)  I have put in for a few jobs here at the park, but I've also put in for some seasonal and term positions in Alaska... So once again, who knows where I will end up in this big beautiful world!