Playing with our tools in Ouray, CO
One 82 hour weekend, visit web 29 hours of driving, 4 states, 1 rented mini-van, 4 stinky guys and 1 petite French Canadian mademoiselle, one 30th birthday, one enclosed "natural" hot-springs, copious amounts of booze, and shit-loads of ice to climb. We left San Diego Thursday night, and after driving through the night we arrived in Ouray around 11 am on Friday. Ice conditions were suboptimal due to warm temperatures and drizzling rain, but made for deep ice tool placements for the first-time ice climbers. Despite driving all night we headed straight for the crag to check out the Ouray Ice Park. However, being a bunch of innate woosies, we refrained from leading and set up TR's to try for the rest of the day, and were thoroughly pumped and soaked by the time it got dark.
Day two led to better and longer TR routes, including some M7 mixed climbing. Unfortunately though we were still too much the sallies to strike out on the sharp end of the rope. However, at the end of the day Robb and Josh managed to spot a highly aesthetic line near he lower bridge for trying on lead the next day. That night we all prepped for the following day's lead by celebrating Josh's 30th with a bottle of wine, a 5th of whiskey, and about 5 pitchers of beer - which led to homo-erotic pillow fights between mohawk sporting Nate and long-john attired Scotty, while each crooned on about his khram and tried to make passes at Josh with Nath looking on... 
Waking with "cleared" heads on Day 3, Sunday, Robb led up the aesthetic WI4 spotted the day before, running it out about 45' after the last screw due to shitty ice, and then nearly pitching off the top while talking with bystanders on the bridge during the top-out. He also had managed to nearly drop his ice tool on his belayer earlier in the climb when he left it in the ice (leashless) while clipping a sling, but was lucky enough to be quick and catch the thing before it fell out of reach. Hmm... intelligent guy, eh? Better lucky than good I guess...
Josh was next to lead the pitch, and so Nath lowered down to belay. Josh, who only started ice climbing two days before and had yet to really set an ice screw, was about to strike out on a heady WI4 with dinner-plating ice, and a large audience watching from the bridge directly above. Luckily he kept up his reputation for having a strong lead head, and pushed through, despite the white, cracked, dinner-plating shit ice around his last screws which were still a good 40' from the top. As a bystander said when he heard what we'd encouraged Josh to do as his first lead, "what are friends for, eh?"
Nate was so inspired by Josh's performance that he promptly wet his pants and set off to lead the kiddy wall instead, where his shorts began to take on the appearance of a cesspool as the low-angle wall also began dinner-plating. Scotty ragged on him to continue however, and Nate managed to get his first ice lead in tandem with the neighboring tots who were still toting diapers and pacifiers. Scotty, inspired by Nate's performance on the toddler wall, decided that he'd rather keeps his shorts clean and just return to the TR wall instead of jumping out on the sharp end. He at least redeemed himself a little here, however, as he found a great location to demonstrate his hardheadedness while dodging a storm of ice chunks sent down by a neighboring group. The rest of us followed in suit, enjoying one long and sustained 150' pitch to finish off the weekend. We left Ouray that afternoon, and 14.5 hours later were greeted once again by San Diego rush hour traffic... what the hell are we doing down here? Let's get back to the land of snow and ice...
