Ouray is a hotbed for the Worlds Best Ice Climbing

By John Garvey
Photos: Neill Pieper

It can be as hardcore as any contact sport, but the perceived danger of ice climbing is the biggest misconception about it. 

“There’s a perceived risk where people say, ‘You’re climbing these frozen waterfalls and that just has to be inherently dangerous,’” says Dan Chehayl. “And there is an inherent danger to it — you always have the potential for some ice fall. But in the Ouray Ice Park, we try to control that inherent danger to the best of our abilities.”

Chehayl, director of operations and fundraising at Ouray Ice Park, isn’t alone in his belief that Ouray is the world’s greatest ice climbing destination. Ouray’s culture, geography and climate combined to make it the sport’s mecca. Chehayl first visited Ouray as an outdoor education and leadership undergrad at Sterling College in Vermont. He quickly fell in love with it. This will be his seventh year at the park, where he began as an ice farmer.

Ice Farming E-I-E-I-O! 

Ouray Ice Park is made possible in part by a one ½-mile plumbing system running along the north rim of Uncompahgre Gorge. From the third week of November to sometime in February or early March, excess water from the city supply runs down the gorge at a rate of 150 to 300 thousand gallons per minute. This continues overnight for as long as the temperature will allow. 

But those legendary climbs don’t just take form when you run the pipes. Ensuring that climbs are high-quality and safe is up to ice farmers. They direct showerheads along each section of the cliffs, hack away loose ice, thaw frozen pipes with blow torches, and coax and sculpt ice along the rim. If the sport itself requires physical fitness and mental  toughness, it’s safe to say ice farmers have a surplus of both.

Regardless of grit and expertise and infrastructure, ice farmers can’t create the same climbing conditions with adverse weather as with ideal, sub-freezing winter temperatures. Warm days, rain, or even deep freezes all pose challenges.

“Last year was actually, in Ouray, a really good year for snow if you were at the right altitude, but the Ice Park is actually just around 7900 [feet] ... so we’ve faced a lot of challenges,” explains Chehayl. 

“We had rain in January and February which hasn’t happened very often. You talk to locals who can remember a season or two where it did, but not to the extent of last year.” 

Ouray Ice Park features 100 to 125 climbs, depending on the season. Roughly 100 more climbs lie in the Ouray backcountry.

“One of the great things about the ice park and Ouray in general is you show up and it’s just such a grand place,” Chehayl says.

“You walk up to the upper bridge of the ice park for the first time and you look down into the canyon and you’re looking 120 feet down and it’s just all blue ice everywhere and it’s just spectacular.” 

Chehayl showed up as a novice years ago and dreamed of tackling the most advanced terrain in the park. Check!

Haute Culture in Cold Ouray!

“We have an amazing climbing community of people who have come from all over the world and decided to stay and put their roots down here,” notes Chehayl. “And for the most part, we all get along really well and our main focus is to make this place bigger and better, and it’s also very welcoming.” 

Ouray’s two breweries — Ouray Brewery and Ourayle House Brewery (better known locally as Mr. Grumpy Pants) — are the favorite destinations for climbers winding down at the day’s end. Chehayl’s favorite post-climb beer is 

Mr. Grumpy’s IPA. Ourayle House is also home to a quirky but meaningful ritual: Paradox Sports hosts an adaptive climbing program at the park each February, and adaptive climbers celebrate by drinking beer out of a prosthetic leg.

Speaking of awesome, the annual Ouray Ice Festival will run from Jan. 

18-20, featuring climbing competitions, live music, equipment demos, tons of climbing clinics and other activities.   

Opening the park each year requires reckoning with the elements, grueling labor, preventing pipes from freezing, finesse and a lot of administrative work. It always gets done. Chehayl sees that as his most important lesson from seven years at the park. “You just need to be persistent and resilient and have passion and everything else will follow.”

A business journalist and freelance writer, John Garvey writes about architecture, sustainability, clean energy R&D and anything that entertains and inspires.  View his portfolio at Clippings.me/johngarvey.