Another trip to Ouray. Megan and I went in January with Dan and Ashley after having talked about an ice climbing trip for a while. Leaving on a Thursday morning we were able to get in a half day of skiing and riding at Copper Mountain before finishing the drive to Ouray that afternoon/evening. We stayed in the AlpenGlow condos where I have stayed in the past and an inattentive house keeper wound up providing us with an upgrade to a 3 bedroom unit since the two bedroom was trashed still from the previous guests!
Overall we had good weather and made it out to Buen Tiempo for dinner and margs one of the nights. Ashely had never tried ice climbing before this trip but did well despite the lack of experience. Most of our climbing this trip was done in the Grad School and New Funtier areas of the park since warm weather had caused much of what ice was there to have been severely picked out in the lower bridge areas (some of them were even closed, which was a first for me to see).
Possible Trip Highlight: We played monopoly (Colorado 14er’s themed board and properties) on Saturday night (yes, we are a wild bunch) and had a good time. Had it not been for a somewhat rash negotiation on my part with Megan I think I could have pulled out the victory but ultimately Ashley won the game. Life lessons learned from this round: No matter how stingy other players are with trading real estate, DO NOT waive all future rent for an opponent in order to gain the first monopoly.
I realize this is a possibility lame trip highlight but I’ve been to Ouray a few times now, and the ice kind of sucked this year.
Overall it was a pretty good trip with the half day of riding and two relaxed days of climbing. Saturday night before leaving we decided to head down to the hot tub at our condo. Unfortunately, the snow was hammering down and after a few beers I managed to take a serious fall on the stairs leading down to the base, landing sharply on my back on the edge of the stairs. I thought I had done some damage but figured it would be ok, however after a few minutes soaking in the tub (immediate heat probably didn’t help what I later realized was a serious muscle injury) I needed to retire for the night. The next morning was pretty bad and I had difficulty getting up and moving around but since it was Sunday by now, we were headed back to the Front Range. My personal P.A. was able to prescribe some muscle relaxers and we all made it back without too much trouble (my back unfortunately wound up taking about a full month until I was able to even get on a bicycle again though).
Travel and tagged Climbing, Ice Climbing, Skiing/Riding on .