Ouray Ice Park 2019: Day FOUR in the Ouray Ice Park

Another day in paradise if you are an ice climber visiting the town of Ouray. The surprise granulated sugar snow falling when I woke was in stark contrast to the heavy giant snowflakes we had the other nite and the fact that nothing was showing up on the local radar to account for the few inches by 9am. Stephan McCay and Alex rolled in sometime yesterday and Naz and Saif took a ski day at Telluride searching for the new surprise pow pow overnight!

The temperature was about 19 when I got to the bridge for the shot of WI5s (pic).

We seem to love the variety of South park and the ability to belay from the base instead of from above. John Smith led Not Without my Anus WI3 with Jason 2nding when Peter Smithniak, Karl from Alaska and I rolled up (pic). Same picture perfect bluebird day, no wind and the crowd was not there. I especially liked the far left side of Mr. Hanky that was free of the manky ice crust created by the new and improved water delivery system activated over the newly fallen snow.

Peter led Sexual harassment Panda WI4 (pic) and Lee Jenkins led either Chinpokomon WI4 or Toms Rhinoplasty WI3 with Simon Carr following (pic).

The end of the fourth day here in the town of Ouray find most of us very tired at the end of the climbing day. There is time to reflect what we have here in this ice park destination. This place is fabulous. The amount of different grades of ice, 15min approach, reasonable temps, BLUE SKY and the easy TR access to everything makes this place a likely yearly destination; I haven't finished my 8 day climbing fest and i am already looking forward to seeing the same faces we met last year again in 2012. This place is insane!!!!!