Well I figured after I mentioned coming to Ouray for the climbing in a post about going to Crested Butte for the skiing, I should maybe post a few climbing shots.A few days ago I went out with my friend Libby, and we had a good ol' fashioned multi-sport day. We started out by heading up to Red Mountain Pass, which sits south of Ouray and east of Telluride, and taking advantage of some really nice stable snow conditions before an impending storm (which is now dumping on us here in the San Juans), we skinned up Red Mountain #1 to ski a couloir into the Gray Copper drainage.
As we were skinning up and getting pretty close to the summit of the peak, Libby mentioned how much she would miss the area after she split next week, and she said she liked how close to the sky you feel around here. I couldn't help but agree.
I'd say Libby was living pretty close to the sky dropping into the couloir.
We were able to find some pretty soft snow that had blown from the west onto this northeastern aspect. Surprisingly soft powder all the way down made the booting at the top all the more rewarding.
The start of our line is somewhere to the left of the prominent black crag at the top of the gully. Not bad for two weeks of warm warm weather after the last snow.
After we finished skiing back to the car, we headed to the ice park for a few laps on some ice and on Libby's project, a tricky and wicked pumpy M7+ called Super Dave.
Unlike most of the hard mixed lines in the park, this one has no bolts on it and takes a selection of cams and nuts in the crack it follows. It's hard. I may need to make it my project too.
It starts out with some cruiser ice up to a thin crack that splits the headwall above.
You climbing is an athletic series of moves off hooks, torques and some fairly crazy stems. The light was flat when we were down there, but here you can see how steep it is as Libby dominates the business section of the climb.
Needless to say, she fired it.
Tomorrow it's off to Telluride to say hello to one of the San Juan's mega-classics, the Ames Ice Hose. Reports will be forthcoming.
The start of our line is somewhere to the left of the prominent black crag at the top of the gully. Not bad for two weeks of warm warm weather after the last snow.
After we finished skiing back to the car, we headed to the ice park for a few laps on some ice and on Libby's project, a tricky and wicked pumpy M7+ called Super Dave.
Unlike most of the hard mixed lines in the park, this one has no bolts on it and takes a selection of cams and nuts in the crack it follows. It's hard. I may need to make it my project too.It starts out with some cruiser ice up to a thin crack that splits the headwall above.
You climbing is an athletic series of moves off hooks, torques and some fairly crazy stems. The light was flat when we were down there, but here you can see how steep it is as Libby dominates the business section of the climb.
Needless to say, she fired it.
Tomorrow it's off to Telluride to say hello to one of the San Juan's mega-classics, the Ames Ice Hose. Reports will be forthcoming.
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