Great news for the future of ice climbing in Ouray.

The city of Ouray has won a State of Colorado grant to help purchase land for the ice park from the Forest Service. The grant, along with other city revenue sources, will facilitate the land purchase and solidify access to the ice park land for continued ice climbing use.

Congratulations and thanks to the people of Ouray, Danika Gilbert (Grant Author), and Patrick Rondinelli (Ouray City Council) for their efforts in getting this done!

Also thanks to Eric Jacobson (owner of the Ouray Hydroelectric Plant)
for continued use of his land and water infrastructure for ice park use!

source:
www.watchnewspapers.com/view/full_story/16871830/article-GOC>>>

Great news!!! The ice park is a real jewel and it is really great to see it's future looking bright.

All this purchase does is continue access to the kids wall and nothing more.

They could have done this several years ago for a fraction of the price, but they dragged their feet.

The continued success of the ice park will lie with mother nature. Dec. was in the 50's for almost 3 weeks, luckily the nights were cool. But they have not been able to make much ice for some time now.

Ouray Hydroelectric has nothing to do with the water infrastructure, that is now on city water and is why the ice is not yellow anymore.

I heard the ice is great this year...
rockandice.com/news/1750-ouray-ice-park-fat

Ice is OK. Remember it has been in the low 50's everyday for two weeks, though the nights have been cool, thus not having the problem of last year. Where they only had some areas open, and even thought about closing. Its still a little thin, but since everyone is a toproper that doesn't really matter.

The ice at Ouray was quite good this past weekend. I don't know what Jamie is talking about, but the ice was great for everything this weekend.

The ice was good and plastic-y this past weekend, but Jamie is right; there's not very much of it.

We found ourselves rapping onto unformed pillars that hung ominously as delicate chandeliers. Another route that was non-existent this year was the fun WI5 in the schoolroom called the "Ouray Pillar"... only fragile ice hung above this would-be line.

This is supposed to be a WI5 pillar in the Five Fingers area... not this year. Submitted By: Dylan Weldin on Jan 9, 2012

This mega classic (per "Colorado Ice") No Doubt Spout was in rough shape this year and stood unclimbed in the lead-only area. Submitted By: Dylan Weldin on Jan 9, 2012

Ouray Pillar (right climb) and unknown steep route in January 2011... these did not form at all this year. Submitted By: Dylan Weldin on Jan 9, 2012