Ouray - Noob to ice help

Greetings, I'm a seasoned sport/alpine rock climber that wants to try ice climbing again after being exposed to it once 20 years ago.  Ouray ice park looks like the place to go for some top roping but after some research there are a few fuzzy details I'd like to help with if anyone would be so kind as to help a gumby out.  I've looked at the Ouray Ice Park website and have the Rock and Ice guide book.

1.  Are all TR areas accessed by walking on the top and rapping down?

2.  What's the anchor situation like?   The guide book has a lot of trees shown, do you just build a sling anchor or is there a more permanent chain system?

3.  Do folks TR on a single rope or use twins?  And what's the most useful length out there.

4.  How much of a struggle will semi-automatic crampon be?  I have good boot (LS Nepal Cube) but only have Grivel G12's for mountaineering.

5.  Any other tips to make my weekend better?

Thanks,

I’ll bite.  The OIP is extremely top rope friendly with most of the climbs having independent anchoring options. About 3 years ago the guys poured small concrete pads that now have anchor bolts. Most pads have two bolts but many have 3. The best thing you could bring would be a 40-50’ chunk of climbing rope for making extended anchors. This will make life a helluva lot easier. Some trees are still in play but for the most part you are building anchors on a two bolt system.  As you walk into the gorge you will be at the top of all the climbs allowing you to build your anchor and toss a rope. There are various walk down trails to get you to the base of the climbs. Rappel is also an option but the walk downs are often the easiest way to descend to the gorge. As far as your crampon selection, rent or buy a pair of technical pons with vertically oriented front points to make climbing vertical ice  easier. A mountaineering crampon will certainly work but you will notice the norm in the park is a mono point.  Bring an anchoring rope! And have a blast.

I agree with SP.  

To iterate on the points:

I'd rent some vertical points for sure.  I have dual points setup.

When I've TR solo'd there, I switched from my 2-strand dynamic rope setup to a single-strand static rope setup just cause I didn't want to fall as far if I popped off (I'm a big ol wus).  Personally, though, I prefer to find a partner... I've found folks just walking around several times... people have been friendly.

Having 15-30M of anchor building cord is super helpful.

I usually find that the school room is too crowded to make it fun.  I don't like climbing next to people, cause I don't want to hit or get hit with falling ice.  

If you've climbed a lot, it's super fun, relatively safe, and pretty easy to do in the context of the ice park.  I spent all morning today walking up a gully near Durango just to find that the formation we wanted to do was non-existant, after bailing off another area where we discovered the road was closed a couple miles up over the last couple weeks.  It's so nice to be 100% sure you can walk 15 min from a parking lot and have something safe and neat-o... have fun!!!

Bring a 70 meter climbing rope, single. You don't want to TR on your twins. The anchors in most of the areas are set well back from the lip, but a good long static--30 feet--or webbing will do the trick. Don't run your static over the pipes that feed the sprinklers--go under. 

I don't know what the river looks like right now but sometimes theres plenty of open water at the bottom, so take care not to dunk your rope when you toss it. In many of the areas you'll be belaying on the opposite side of the river, and if the ice/snow coverage is low that also means spotty start zones in some areas. I usually walk down instead of rapping in, unless I know for sure what the line looks like and I know that there's an adequate dry landing pad below. (It's pretty exciting to be on rappel and learn that you've dropped your rope over a line that's mostly rock--and its not an obvious mixed route. Go early, the best lines go fast!)

If you're looking to start with the easier stuff, head to the Schoolroom or South Park. And ditto Sauce Purvis on the crampons--you're definitely going to want aggressive front points.

Super helpful everyone.

I do have a partner lined up and excited to try a bunch of pitches.  I'll take my 70m rope and some long anchor building gear and aim to walk down at the start to scope out where I'm headed first.  I was hoping to avoid renting anything but it seems unanimous I should hunt around for some mono points.

Jesse, my first and only trip to the ice park was using both strap on crampons and Petzl Darts. I found the dual points easier to climb in, surprisingly, so I stuck to those. I only toproped that weekend. We started at the New Funtier, did the School Room, the lower bridge routes that are super long, and some stuff down past the bridge as well. All of the anchors are fixed and obvious. The tall routes you just lower in and belay from above. Shorter ones you can belay from below as normal.

Have a great time! The most important part is going to Orvis Hot Springs afterwards, and not the city hot springs. 

Jesse Jakomait wrote:

I was hoping to avoid renting anything but it seems unanimous I should hunt around for some mono points.

I think you could avoid renting anything (if you're worried about cost) - hybrid pons with Nepals really won't hold you back that much, especially if you're just trying things out for a weekend. The park (especially the more moderate areas) are often so picked out that you barely have to kick anyway.

The ice park has a tutorial on this topic. 

I use a 100' piece of static line when building anchors at NewFuntier and South Park.

I’ll play devils advocate. No need to rent crampons. Your G-12’s will work great!  I climbed on general mountaineering crampons (BD sabertooths, CM black ice) for years before switching to mono point crampons. I recently got a great deal on a set of “simi-auto” G-12 with the basket front and bail back and found i really liked climbing on them until it got really cold. Temps that Ouray isn’t likely to see for extended periods like Alaska.

Edit: if you’re looking to do some drytooling, that’s a whole different animal 

climbing coastie wrote:

I’ll play devils advocate. No need to rent crampons. Your G-12’s will work great!  I climbed on general mountaineering crampons (BD sabertooths, CM black ice) for years before switching to mono point crampons. I recently got a great deal on a set of “simi-auto” G-12 with the basket front and bail back and found i really liked climbing on them until it got really cold. Temps that Ouray isn’t likely to see for extended periods like Alaska.

Edit: if you’re looking to do some drytooling, that’s a whole different animal 

I appreciate your comments.  I was trying to decide if ice climbing with my crampon setup was like rock climbing in approach shoes or like climbing in LS Mythos shoes.  Zero chance of dry tooling this round!  If things go well, I'd happily buy a set of mono-points but I'd like to remind myself how fun screaming barfies are and the joy of getting rained on by ice shards all day before I head deeper down that path.

Jesse Jakomait wrote:

I appreciate your comments.  I was trying to decide if ice climbing with my crampon setup was like rock climbing in approach shoes or like climbing in LS Mythos shoes.  Zero chance of dry tooling this round!  If things go well, I'd happily buy a set of mono-points but I'd like to remind myself how fun screaming barfies are and the joy of getting rained on by ice shards all day before I head deeper down that path.

Dude, you can just borrow my crampons, and even my ice tools if you want. I'm not using them a lot. Ha ha ha. Send me a text or message through here and they are yours. 

Tim Stich wrote:

Dude, you can just borrow my crampons, and even my ice tools if you want. I'm not using them a lot. Ha ha ha. Send me a text or message through here and they are yours. 

Thanks for the offer Tim!  I would take you up on that but I'm floating around in Glenwood this week before heading to Ouray.  I'll keep you in mind if I want a second crack at it later in the winter.

Some areas in the park it is best to lower the climber in and belay from the top so you aren't standing at the bottom getting pummeled with ice. It is nice to have an ATC guide for this procedure. Lower the climber directly off the anchor with the ATC (best to re-direct the brake strand to the shelf) and then clip the ATC in guide mode to the shelf once the climber has reached the bottom. There's a video from the Ice Park staff somewhere on the interwebs about it.

Edit: Here's one 

Weekend was super successful and I wanted to thank everyone for the tips to make my first Ouray trip go so well.

Should anyone be in a similar situation and dig up this thread my highlights would be:

*Long anchor material is mandatory and a 70m rope is clutch

*Dont worry about having mono-point crampons but do make sure what you have is sharp and on tight.  My G12's were not holding me back.

*Expect weekends to be VERY busy with the odds of getting any open TR anchor after 10am (or 9am?) quite challenging.  Make friends with those around you to swap lines throughout the day.

*Route nav is all chaos.  Anchors are all numbered but guides have names and there is no correlation.  But it doesn't actually matter.  Is the line vert or slabby is all the really matters.

*The town of Ouray doesn't start unitl 8am, plan accordingly if you want to get an early start yourself.

We didn't arrive to the park until 9:30am on Saturday and the parking lot was packed!  Walking up the canyon, every line was taken from the School Room all the way to South Park where we finally found one open anchor and went to town.  Still managed to get in about 7 pitches by trading anchors a few times with neighbors.  The next day after feeling more confident on our limits and getting an early start, we found a few good looking WI5's in the Scottish Gullies and just ran some laps to get more comfortable.  Belaying from above was nice to be clear of falling ice.  Some folks around us were hell bent on annihilating their way to the top smashing at the ice like some sort of medieval warrior than using any sort of finesse.  Maybe it was therapeutic for em?  

There will definitely be more Ouray in my future and shopping for some ice screws

Jesse-nice follow up on your experience.

Jesse Jakomait wrote:

Some folks around us were hell bent on annihilating their way to the top smashing at the ice like some sort of medieval warrior than using any sort of finesse.  Maybe it was therapeutic for em?  

Hahaha, for when hooking too boring