First Day in the Park

The gang began to arrive in Ouray on the 20th to beautiful weather in the upper 20's blue skies.

John Smith , Jason Es and myself headed to South Park early and set up a couple of ropes by 9am. There was a 40% chance of snow today but the sun came out and it was just a beautiful beautiful day climbing with temps in the upper 20's. We hooked up with Kevin Donovan and Hillary, whom we climbed with last year and had a number of ropes going at once! Naz called us and I think she had Lee Jenkins, Saif, and Peter in tow but they never made as far as South Park today and stayed I think at the New Funtier. The river is flowing this year. The park has aluminum ladders across the river and ya have to walk across to belay just like in stuff you see on Everest. The is is great!

Jason who had never seen a crampon or ice tool took to the ice with annoying expertise. The last straw came when Jason climbed SUPER FUN TIME WI4 like he'd been climbing all his life, the stout column at the top was in good form this year and so was jason. Pretty gosh darn GREAT day for a newby! Congrats Jason-your are born again!