OURAY, Colo. — Box Canyon hangs above the Uncompahgre River in Ouray, Colorado. There's about 17,000 feet of rock wall stretching for nearly two miles.
By about mid-November, freezing temperatures start to transform that canyon into the Ouray Ice Park.
"It's an amazing thing to watch happen," said the park's executive director, Peter O'Neil. “It is absolutely spectacular. I mean, it’s magical.”
Towers of ice build by the time the park opens in mid-December, and ice climbers from all over the world come to dig their picks and crampons into 150 different routes.
But the ice routes don't just magically appear. The formations that climbers call towers and daggers are carefully cultivated by a crew known as ice farmers.
They spray water on the canyon walls every night to grow the ice. Then they sculpt and clear the routes using pickaxes.
“So the water that we use to make ice is actually potable drinking water from the city water tanks,” O'Neil said.
He said the park gets the overflow from the city's water supply and has done so for 27 years. But he's concerned about the frequent drought that's hit the area.
Weehawken Spring is the source of water for the city of Ouray, and O'Neil said the flow from that spring is starting to diminish. The city may not always have enough water to share for ice making.
The ice park launched a campaign last year called Our Water, Our Future, aimed at gaining water independence from the city.
He said they’ve now reached a new deal with Ouray Silver Mines to divert water from Canyon Creek. They have agreed to give the Ouray Ice Park three shares of its water rights.
They are non-consumptive water rights, according to O'Neil.
"It's a huge vertical reservoir of frozen water," he said. "We will pump it out of Canyon Creek in the fall when the demand for water is low, it hangs on our walls as ice over the winter, and it melts and runs into the Ridgway reservoir in the spring when the demand for water goes back up."
It will not only be a more consistent and reliable water supply, but he said it's also five times more water than they had previously. It will allow them to expand the park's ice terrain in the future.
Sixty-three sections of 40-foot pipe have already been delivered to the site, and the new pipeline will start to get installed on Monday, weather permitting. The new water supply could be ready for use by November 2023.
However, O'Neil said they have not even raised half the money necessary for the supplies and installation.
As a nonprofit organization that runs a free park, he said they rely completely on memberships and donations. They also have some cool swag available for purchase at their online store.
The new water line unburdens the city, and paints a bright future for the ice, which a study showed has a $19 million economic impact to the community. That study was conducted after the 2022 season by the Department of Economics at Kent State University.
“Ouray Ice Park is to Ouray as the ski hill is to Telluride,” he said. "One of our biggest and most successful events of the season is the Ice Festival."
This season's Ice Fest will be Jan. 19-22.
Drought, however, is not the only climate issue the Ouray Ice Park will have to contend with. O’Neil said warm temperatures may someday threaten Ouray’s winter park.
"We've already seen that to some extent," he said. "Last year just before Christmas we had a huge rainstorm that decimated a lot of the progress that we made in farming the ice over the previous month."
There's not much the park can do about temperatures, but O'Neil said it feels good to know they are being as sustainable as possible, and at least for now, they will have a great water source for many years to come.
“It’s exciting to see and feel the energy of people coming back to use this really unique resource that we have," he said.
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