Getting Dizzy in Ouray

nice! so by "working" I take you mean it was not an onsight?

Doood...you are sooo off route. The ice is on your right! ;) Nice picture though DB.

No on-site. It needs more ice. The top is quite spicy without ice.

CT has my feelings....'Hey, there's perfectly good ice over there to your right!" But just seeing this shot sends me into deep depression from lack of ice here at home. I'm gonna take my ice tools now and just curl up with my blanket in a corner and be depressed for a bit...dam you lucky ice climbers out there!

Woodchuck, it sounds like time for a road trip.
That climb has usually got more ice on it. At the point I am at in the pic I would normally be arriving at the bottom of a fat cicle.

So you're just heading up that direction from force of habit, staying 'on route', eh?

That is where the bolts go.

Bolts? I thought you said this spot was usually covered with thick ice? So there is such a thing as a 'sport-ice' climb? Bolted across the dry tool spots and then ice pro? Geez, I AM so trad'behind in what is happening I guess.

most mixed climbs will have some sort of icicle finish. As you can see, the beginning is ice, then the mixed portion and then onto ice for the topout. with lean conditions and early season (the park just opened last week) its a bit thin.

In our area, thin or no ice means NO CLIMBING allowed in the state park. They distinctly forbid any dry tools touching their sandstone for fear we might destroy the entire park in one active winter. You know, chop out tunnels,steps, belay ledges and all that in the rock walls. It's running water for erosion or nothing at all. In that purist idealistic environment, I suggest we all climb naked with only sharpened sticks for tools.

You silly beavers! Ice is for cocktails, not climbing. ;^)

Very nice shot. I have never snapped ice climbing. Pretty tough with all the white in the exposure, I'm sure.