Never ones to let a little hiccup get in our way, we checked out the map and saw that Telluride was just over the hills. I’ve always heard great things about Telluride, and since we were in the area why not go check it out? Telluride turned out to be one of my favorite places on the trip so far. It’s in an even boxier and more impressive box canyon than Ouray. The town is maybe a mile long and ¾ of a mile wide, and is the ideal laid back mountain town right at the foot of a ski area. The bad thing is that many other people have discovered this as well, and real estate there is ridiculous! Since Nate and I had our own mobile real estate with us, we were okay. We spent the afternoon walking around town, eating fresh pastries and going on a short hike. There wasn’t really anything epic that happened, but the whole time I kept talking about how I wanted to come back someday. I hear summer is pretty awesome as well.
The next day, I finally got the gear I need and we got out on the ice. The basic instructions for ice climbing are “kick, kick, whack, whack.” Kick in your crampons, take a step up, then whack in your ice axes. Rinse, lather, repeat. Well, except for the rinse and lather part, which I could have used because I really needed a shower, it had been awhile. Anyway, we climbed around in a part of the park called South Park (because it’s the Southern part of the park, not because there are a bunch of dysfunctional cartoon characters living there). It was great and we were on some easier routes, which were great for learning. Later on, we headed on down to a different part of the park called The Schoolhouse, which had some longer and more difficult climbs. Nate’s rope wasn’t quite long enough to belay from the bottom, so we both got the thrill of being lowered down into the climb from the top. Which scared the crap out of me, because you couldn’t see what it looked like at all before you were committed. Yikes. Needless to say, we both made it out okay and I only peed in my pants just a little bit.
The next day was more climbing, and this time we got on some more difficult routes. Which Nate totally loved, and I just worked on controlling my fear. I have no problem jumping off a 15’ cliff or skiing a 45 degree chute, but get me up on a rock face and it’s deep breathing time. Then, cover that face with ice and give me a couple spikes to hang onto, and oh man, time for my Zen exercises. In reality, I was totally safe and roped in, but would someone please tell that to my brain? Everything worked out okay in the end, and we finished on a really good climb, so all in all ice climbing was a lot of fun. Scary for me, but fun. Satisfied for the time being, we hopped back in the van for a ski day at Copper and then off to the airport to see our respective honeybunches.