Ouray Ice Festival 2011

For those of you who have never seen an ice screw in the ice. There is a carbiner attached to the screw and the rope to that. You just turn it like a crank and it bites into the ice. The trick is to pick a nice solid section as you head up the waterfall!

Chris Alstrin on lead on the route called Skylight. It is a two pitch ice climb. You can see the think ribbon of ice that we climbed on the next pitch. We hiked from the car up a well packed road to these ice falls located just a few feet off the road. The views were great and the weather was not too cold. Actually, when the sun came out and we were finished climbing we just wore light jackets. It felt like it was in the 40's!

Me sporting my borrowed ice axes and warm Arcteryx winter gear!

Chris in front of the route and right off the road that we hiked up on.

As usual, our shenanigans before dawn in downtown Ouray. Chris helping adjust my crampons since I was borrowing gear that he had set up for his boots.
The Ouray Ice Festival was a blast after we finished climbing some routes in the morning. More pictures in the next post!

piz : )