Meltdown

THE ice is gone.

Climbers can no longer scale the ice walls of Boulder Canyon, Colo., with axes or crampons in preparation for tougher scrambles up the frozen Rockies. The city of Boulder recently patched leaks in a six-mile water pipe that created chilled vampire fangs and falls, ending four decades of popular, albeit semiartificial, climbing.

Now a group called the Access Fund is pushing city officials to again let the water spill over crags and restore the icy routes. Later this month, the climbing enthusiasts will present the City Council a petition with 400 signatures seeking new valves that would spout water and restore the ice.

“Without this proposal, there’s no ice in the canyon, and there’s no ice climbing in Boulder,” says Jack Roberts, a climber and author of the book “Colorado Ice.”

The City Council asked its staff to research whether the ice climbs in Boulder Canyon can be restored by next winter. But the red tape and price seem daunting. Valves and water could cost $2,000 to $50,000, depending on how elaborate a system is constructed. The Access Fund is looking for money for new plumbing. Climbers seeking to improve upon nature have long sprayed cliffs with garden hoses, but Rock & Ice magazine publisher Duane Raleigh says that only Ouray, Colo., has officially sanctioned routes. That town’s annual Ice Festival in January drew about 5,500 visitors to 180 frosty paths created from shower nozzles attached to plastic pipes. Other cities have explored adding imitation ice parks, including Ogden, Utah, and the Colorado towns of Creede, Lake City, Redstone and Idaho Springs. Climbers in Iowa hose concrete silos into frozen blocks for an annual Red Bull-sponsored contest.

In Boulder Canyon, climbers say the man-made ice sheets have been around long enough to attain cultural significance. Ice also pumps cash into the community: Boulder (population: about 100,000) has 80 recreation stores, and the Access Fund estimates that 5,000 to 7,000 climbers live there.

Roberts says the ice walls of Boulder Canyon have a unique history. It was here that climbers pioneered techniques such as the stein pull -- when a climber jams a pick upside down into ice to reach around poor terrain -- and refined dry tooling or notching up both frost and granite surfaces on crags below the leaky water pipe.

Back in the late 1990s, many climbers in the “Boulder ice underground” rigged a hose to the pipe and crusted cliffs called Vampire Rock and Black Widow with 400-foot icicles. Some climbers called for an official park like the one in Ouray.

In November 1998, the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper described a dream scheme to build a “winter playground, complete with dozens of manufactured ice climbing routes, plowed parking lots and even porta-potties.”

But others who feared ice would damage dry rock routes and climbing bolts exulted in the demise of manufactured ice routes.

It’s going to be an uphill slog to bring the ice back.

The Access Fund and its allies must persuade city and county officials. The county must decide the need for parking or toilets, whether ice climbing harms the environment, and how to rescue stranded or injured climbers. City officials want to know who will pay for the water lost in leaks to make ice, and how to cover liabilities in case of accidents. (The death of a man at the 2001 Ouray Ice Festival resulted in lawsuits against a climbing instructor and guide service.)

Nevertheless, Boulder officials seem supportive and expect the Access Fund to make good on its pledge to raise money from climbers and businesses.

“I would say it’s my job to facilitate ice climbing if I can do so,” says City Atty. Ariel Calonne, “because it’s part of what Boulder is.”