DO BEFORE YOU DIE CLIMB AN ICY FALLS

摘要

Each winter, crack-ling and splintering ice echoes across the Uncompahgre Gorge, roughly 10 miles northeast of Telluride, Colorado. The sound signals high season at Ouray Ice Park, the world's first and largest man-made frozen climbing grounds. The gorge's walls are crisscrossed by 2 miles of pipes, crowned by a network of valves, showerheads, and faucets. Each night, the fixtures unleash more than 100,000 gallons of runoff down the jagged cliff face, cooling the rock. Once the temperature dips below 28 degrees, that gushing water is turned to a mist and the droplets freeze together to form a blanket of ice more than 10 feet thick. Then ice farmers like Xander Bianchi, a former mechanical engineer, shape more than 100 routes into the pitch, dribbling water down freezing chains to form ice columns. Last, climbers suspended by ropes hurl axes into the precipice to hoist themselves up glacial pillars and bright blue curtains. Come spring, the frozen cascade melts away, trickling into the Colorado River.