I went down to Ouray over New Years and climbed with a guide, Mark Miller of San Juan Mountain Guides. Ouray had a week of cold weather after Christmas and several south-facing climbs that don't form very often were in.
If you've been to Ouray, you've seen Cascade Falls, just a few blocks east of Main Street. On New Years day we woke early to -5 degrees and clear skies and walked on up there.
This climb is normally 2 pitches. It started with a big spray cone of cauliflower ice, followed by a hollow shield with running water, then an overhanging bulge below a big ledge. The ledge was covered with a foot of new snow, so Mark continued up easier ice looking for a better belay. Eventually the 70m ropes ran out so I scrambled as high as I could, but Mark was still 5M short of the belay tree at the top. We simul-climbed that last bit to make one long pitch with several different kinds of ice. With rope stretch we got down with one double rope rappel, and then headed over to the Ice Park.
The next day we started even earlier and drove south about five minutes past the Ice Park to climb Kennedy's Gully, the long rambling line in the photo.
We left the car at 6:45 a.m and it was already a balmy 10 degrees F and clear. We wanted to get up and down before too much of the climb started falling off. Just a bit up from the highway started a couple short scrambly pitches followed by a short snow slog that got us to the first sustained pitch, seen as the thin straight line in the photo above.
After that was more snow with an ice bulge or two, followed by a long stretch of thigh-deep pig wallow to reach the base of the upper pitches. It was a lot of work, but worth it. The last three pitches were continuous WI 3+ with great views.
The sun hit the ice just as we reached the top. We rappelled from trees and fixed gear in the rock that we enhanced in places. On the way down, the lower full pitch had already melted to about two feet wide at its narrowest.
I learned a ton from Mark at the Ice Park, but there's more ice in Ouray than what's in the park. These were two excellent outings.
Dave Johnson