Hooray for Ouray

This should be a picture of me ice climbing in Ouray, colorado but.... eric's camera promptly died upon arrival so we have no recorded pictures. boo!

Ouray, colorado might be one of my new favorite places. it is a very quaint mountain village(not even a town) nesteled in one of the tightest canyons i've ever seen a village in! at the end of the canyon there is an 'ice farm'. people have rigged a system up to drip water down the very narrow canyon walls to create large waterfalls of ice. then, ice climbers from all over the world make the journey to climb up the sheets of ice. it's fascinating! there is an ice fest there every year with serious competitions and serious ice climbers. i am not a serious ice climber. what is nice about the ouray ice park is you can top rope everything. meaning you can drop a rope down from an anchor on top of the canyon and rappell down into the canyon. then you can climb back out, all the while being kept safe by the rope. as opposed to leading things where you have big fall potential, top roping is extremely safe. well safe if you consider that you are holding two ice tools and strapped to your feet are crampons with 12 pointy things. ice climbing is pretty different from rock climbing, although the gear knowledge and anchoring systems translate quite nicely. still, i was scared of the climbing, scared of the equipment, scared of the ice.... just like it was to first rock climb i guess. it's been a while since i've felt that way about rock climbing, so it was interesting to be back in that 'total novice' category with climbing again.

eric and i stayed at a bed and breakfast and let me just tell you they are fantastic!!! i've decided when we retire i'd like to move to ouray and run a bed and breakfast. ouray is mostly a summer tourism town, so we got a killer deal for the winter rates. we were the only guests there on friday night. they opened a bottle of wine for us each evening, and we had the outdoors jacuzzi to ourselves the first night. and the breakfast each morning was amazing- so much food that we skipped lunch each day.

i would highly recommend a vacation to ouray. in the winter you can snow shoe, cross country ski, back country ski, ice climb, or ice skate. in the summer you can hike, mountain bike, road bike, and camp. the winter rates are much more reasonable though it is cold. but it is beautiful!! and you should stay at the Black Bear Lodge. :)