Skiing and Ice Climbing in the San Juans- December 2022

Ouray Ice Park

After a few years of visiting Ouray we have become pretty decent top rope ice climbers. Sometimes its hard to decide to skip skiing to ice climb but we always find a time and it is worth it. To visit Ouray Ice Park, you must bring your own gear and know how to use it, but the entrance is free. We typically buy a membership as its nice to support what they do to provide top rope ice climbing in such a gorgeous setting. Here are some pictures from a few days we spent ice climbing around Christmas of 2022.

Silverton

We have some interesting memories at this mountain. In January 2019 we were in the area ice climbing with the Colorado Mountain Club. A big storm was approaching so we booked a day at Silverton. The storm delivered and there was a big dump. After one very long and exhausting powder run, we went for a second run and on this fateful run is when Andrew tore his ACL. Silverton is not a traditional resort with traditional ski patrol. We basically had to butt scooch down the mountain, hobble across a frozen creek to where the bus picked us up to take us back to the main base. Then there was the 6 hour drive back to Denver (in another snowstorm) with a swollen knee and worrying about what the injury.

But enough about the past trip. This time in 2022 we were in the area again ice climbing and decided to give it another shot. December through mid March is guided skiing only, so we each bought a guided ski ticket. We went on opening weekend and we didn't really know what to expect for early season. Turns out the avalanche conditions were worse than normal and it took a couple hours for ski ops to open the mountain for the guests. Unfortunately this meant waiting around for way too long to get out. They only felt comfortable opening one run to start so we then spent a lot of time at the top of the run waiting for other groups to go down.

Thankfully we were able to find pockets of good snow but since it was early season we also found plenty of sticks and rocks buried slightly under the thin snowpack. We even saw the guide catch something under the snow and take a small fall. We basically felt like early season snow compacters helping set up the snow for the rest of the season. Silverton is still an experience like nothing else but we would suggest later in the season...

Monarch

Next stop was chasing snow to Monarch mountain. We spent an afternoon and the following day there. Monarch is always a fun mountain and never disappoints us. This was the first time we skied Mirkwood and it was stellar. We lapped it 5 times requiring a hike each time. We saw the owner and their crew get snowmobiled up the hike instead. I guess thats a pretty good owner perk! We found fresh turns down the bowl every time. This one of the best days of skiing we've had together.

Wolf Creek

The skiing continued at Wolf Creek. Our final chase before heading home was Wolf Creek. The day tickets are affordable here relative to the major resorts. We stayed on the South Fork side. The second day we were there was a big enough snow storm to close the pass from the Pagosa Springs side. The mountain was slow to open as a lot of the employees live on that side. We finally got skiing and found amazing first tracks. There is tons of hiking at Wolf creek (our favorite thing) . There is even a free snow cat that takes you ever further!

All in all it was a great week down in the San Juans, including camping out of the Rivian, chasing snow and a couple last minute hotel finds. In some sense it was stressful only planning out a few days and then figuring out where to go - but in the end it was totally the memories and adventure.