Learning to Breathe Again (Hardwear Sessions)

Malcolm Competing at Ouray

By Malcolm Kent

103.2fm, Ouray subliminal cuts 24-7. Crazy that you can drive 6 hours through blizzards to a tiny little town in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado and then find the radio 'seek' engaging the best radio station you've ever heard in your life. Another day goes by, with another drive out to the evening's entertainment and yet again another seemlingly unflappable mix of high quality tunes eminate from this station. There's no way this can be anything other than one guy in his bedroom knocking out tracks in a pirate fashion. But the smoothness just goes on. No doubt - this fella must have one hell of an mp3 collection.

Every trip I've ever done to Ouray has always had a number of common threads. Things like beautiful photographs, clear blue sky days, hot tubbing and of course eating and drinking at the 'Bien'. But during the legendary ice festival, you sit in the 'Bien' necking margaritas alongside Ines Papert and Steve House. In fact if you're like us, you get to sleep in the room next to Guy Lacelle (who apparently hates people making too much noise). This is the first year that I've been in town for the week of the 'Fest' and now I look back on it, I'm made up that we made it out and decided to get involved. Quite often with ice trips, the motivation to get out of bed early in the morning and subject yourself to freezing temperatures, spin-drift and falling ice can run low pretty quickly. When you're staying in Ouray though, it's so much easier. The walk-in is barely measurable, the ice is encapsulating with 'bomber' anchors everywhere and the locals are totally welcoming. If you're British and a tight-arse though, it'll be the value for money and the exchange rate that will really float your boat.

'Give-errrrrrr'. Cheers Will. The Gaddster [Will Gadd] blows my ear drums out with his idiosyncratic chant to drive Ines [Ines Papert] to a successful figure-four finish to her attempt on the competition route. In the end five figure-fours and several figure-nines just wasn't enough of a warm-up to get her over the top of the 'diving board' [a 45 degree overhanging ply-panel board]. So our new friend Jeff Mercier from Chamonix took the title of '2008 Ouray Competition Champion'. I got to know Jeff a few months back through a mutual buddy of ours, Fiona Murray. In a couple of days we will travel to Lake City with Jeff and his colleague Boris, to check out a route called 'Jedi Mind Tricks'.

For me though, having failed to lead Scotland to Braveheartish victory in the comp, the most valuable output from this first leg of the trip has been the people I've met and got to know. People like Rob, the guy that keeps the event running in the snow storms, through sheer hard work and commitment. His enthusiasm for the 'Fest' and for the Ouray Ice Park in general was pure positivity and his experience of visiting Scotland, refreshing. I've also developed a massive respect for the humble attitude of Evgeny [Evgeny Krivosheitsev]. Evgeny is arguably one of the best sport mixed climbers in the world at the moment, but you wouldn't know it from his demeanour. After popping off the final comp route two moves from the top, with 10 minutes still to spare and looking like cruising to victory, Evgeny was still as sociable and upbeat as normal. It's great to meet such a talented and successful climber that still has their feet firmly planted on planet earth. Not to say that others don't of course.

Ouray has always been a must as part of this 10 week trip, to miss it just wouldn't be cricket. Along the way though, Ouray has also provided continuous opportunity to hone the skills on ice and on mixed ground. For sure, the real hard climbing starts at Lake City, but hanging out in Ouray has allowed subtle acclimatisation both to climbing and to conditions. Having climbed and trained a lot recently in Scotland, on 'Scottish' rock, I've really found benefit in pulling down on a new rock type with new features. From vertical technical mixed walls in the Box Canyon to short pumpy steepness at the Poser's Lounge. But of course, I forgot, no fest would be complete without a decent climber's party. Word-up to Petzl for sponsoring this year's late night of drunken social surfing at the Opera House. Is there a better way to train for hard mixed climbing?

After just one week on the road, we've already ammassed hundreds of photos. I've made a vain and thuggish attempt to chop these down to a select bunch of pics. These lucky ones have made it to the Mountain Hardwear Flickr page. Big thanks to Daniel Alonso our photographer during this kick-off leg of the trip.