Part 1: The Genesis of the Ouray Ice Park
By Peter Shelton
Back in the early 1980s, Ouray in the winter was essentially Rip Van Winkle-Ville. Driving through town on our way to skiing the backcountry, some mornings there wasn’t a single car on Main Street, no human form stirring in the frosty air.
Then a remarkable and unlikely thing happened. People started coming to Ouray to climb manmade frozen waterfalls.
The genesis story of the Ouray Ice Park may be apocryphal, but I like it. It involves an old friend Bobo, née James Burwick, a jack-of-all-trades mountaineer come to the San Juan’s in the early 80s. One day, legend has it, he peered into the dark slit of the Uncompahgre River gorge upstream of the Camp Bird Road bridge and saw an eighty-foot icicle dripping out of a leaky water pipe.
The old penstock (a hydroelectric pipeline) wound down the gorge from a dam a couple of miles upstream. And everywhere it leaked, there was another icicle. Bobo and friends rappelled down the cliffs and spidered back up the undulating ice. They wore 12-point crampons on their clunky mountaineering boots, wool pants and boiled-wool Dachstein mittens. When they reached the top—oops—their big, clumsy ice axes sometimes accidentally punched new holes in the metal pipe. Well darned if a new climb didn’t materialize after a few days or weeks.
Of course, Bobo wasn’t the first to climb ice around here. In 1974, ice pioneers Jeff Lowe and Mike Weiss climbed Telluride’s Bridal Veil Falls, the highest one-stage drop in Colorado at 365 feet. ABC’s Wide World of Sports very publicly broadcast the attempt. The notoriety horrified the Idarado Mining Company, which owned the land. Lowe had to sneak past Idarado guards for subsequent climbs, as no landowner in those days would condone such death-defying craziness.
But Lowe wasn’t crazy; he was on the cutting edge.
Rahn Zaccari, Tim Eihausen, Dick Fowler, Bill Whit, Gary Wild. Working on the old pipeline.
Part 2: An Insider’s Story of the Ouray Ice Park
By Samantha Wright
In 1991, Bill Whitt, a California windsurfing bum turned ice climber, and local attorney turned real estate developer Gary Wild bought a hotel together in Ouray called the Victorian Inn.
They dreamed up the Ouray Ice Park as a way to drum up winter business. But before they could start farming ice, they had to get the blessing of Eric Jacobson, the owner of the Ouray Hydroelectric Plant, who owned an easement right through the Uncompahgre Gorge.
As Whitt tells the story, Jacobson and Wild were not crazy about each other. But then one day, “Gary walked over to the hydro plant with a six-pack, sat down with Eric, they started drinking beers, and it was like, “I love you, man,” and boom, it was solved. They worked it all out. Without that, there would never be an Ice Park.”
In the early days of ice farming in the Uncompahgre Gorge, “there was a lot of trial and error, Whitt said. “Nobody had done anything like this before. It was a grassroots effort personified. And it was also a pain in the ass. We’d run hoses and stuff, and that worked great for half a night, then they’d be frozen solid. So we’d strip the hoses, take them down to the Victorian Inn, put ’em in the hot tub, defrost them, than take them back up and hook them up again.”
Dick Fowler working on the penstock.
Miraculously, it worked. The ice started growing, Ice climbers flocked to Ouray from around the world. Et. Voila, the Ouray Ice Park was born.
“Everyone thought we were mental,” Whitt said. They said it would never make any money and it was the stupidest thing ever. There are still locals that wish it never started.” But most folks today agree that the Ice Park changed Ouray, and the sport of ice climbing for the better.
Winter of 1995/1996. construction of the original wooden walkway in the School Room and Trestle areas.
Part 3: 1994 to Present Day
BY MIKE GIBBS
Bill Whitt and Gary Wild’s effort to “farm” ice attracted enough attention that in 1994, the Ice Park had its first winter of operation. The first paid Ice Farmer was Bill MacTiernan. Second was Brad McCardle, then Mark Miller, then Rob Holmes. They were all mostly solo workers. Additional helpers were added during Mark and Rob’s tenure as part-timers. Mike Bryson replaced Rob. Kevin Koprek became the next ice farmer in charge. Then Dan Chehayl.
In January 1996, the first Ouray Ice Festival (run by Jeff Lowe) was held. Sandy East had a smaller event a couple of years prior before there was active water manipulation and ice farming. The event was presented by Salomon boots. The only other sponsor was Jagged Edge. Duncan Ferguson did a demo climb of Duncan’s Delight in front of about 30-40 onlookers staged on the opposite side of the gorge. No competition was held that year.
By 1997, Ouray Ice Park, Inc. (OIPI) was officially established as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization to create and maintain the Ouray Ice Park each season. The first Board of Directors consisted of Pat O’Donnell as President, Mike Gibbs as Vice, Tim Eihausen, Gay Wild, Billy MacTiernan, Timmy O’Neill, and David Potter. Timmy, David, and Mike Gibbs were all employees of Jagged Edge Mountain Gear in Telluride. They did a bunch of volunteering and were one of the first corporate sponsors of the Park and Fest. Gary Wild was insistent that he not hold an officer role, but he was still in charge at that time.
Every winter since, the Ice Park has opened to the public as a free and public ice climbing park. And since 1996, OIPI has held the annual Ouray Ice Festival to help raise funding for the operation.
A few other key developments occurred as the Ice Park has progressed over the past 29 years. In 2007 The Memorial and Kids’ Wall were announced as a combined inspiration. The Memorial is located next to the Kids’ Wall and holds the names of climbers who have passed on who played a key role in the ongoing evolution of the park. The Kids’ Wall was dedicated to the kids of our board members as a place for them to climb.
In 2012, we created the Jeff Lowe award to honor the late climber and founder, and the first recipient was Bill Whitt. This award is now presented every year at the Ouray Ice Festival to recipients who have had an instrumental role in the creation and operation of the park.
In 2015, climber Mark Miller passed away, and the Lead Only Area was renamed the Mark Miller Memorial Lead Area. In 2016, the Rob Savoye Award was developed in conjunction with the Jeff Lowe award and presented to super volunteer Rob Savoye for his unmatched Ice Fest volunteerism.
Fast forward to today, almost 30 years since the inception of the Ouray Ice Park, and we now have almost two miles of vertical terrain and over 200 ice and mixed climbs stretching along the Uncompahgre Gorge. Massive infrastructure improvements have been made to climbing areas and our plumbing systems, and a new water pipeline is currently being built as part of the Our Water Our Future campaign. Terrain has also been expanded and will continue to grow once our new pipeline is online, hopefully by Fall 2023.
Despite the high cost of its maintenance, the Park remains free and open for public use. In almost 30 years of operation, it has become one of the premier ice climbing venues in the world.
