Among winter alpine sports, ice climbing has an interesting advantage when it comes to drawing a crowd.
In skiing and snowboarding, snowmobile racing, even snowbike and fat bike competitions, the audience needs to come to the venue. With ice climbing, the venue can be brought to the audience.
That is the case this week as Ska Brewing hosts the opening event of the 2017 UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation) Ice Climbing World Tour. The event is also the American Alpine Club’s North American Ice Climbing Championships.
A lot of acronyms and proper nouns, but boiled down it means that world-class ice climbers are in town, and we have an amazing opportunity to see these athletes in action — while comfortably seated on Ska’s patio — as they compete in both lead and speed ice climbing disciplines.
On its website, the UIAA says lead events demand that climbers execute complex moves from incredibly difficult positions and angles. Speed events are a vertical take on track and field’s 100-meter dash, demanding “raw power, core strength and channeled aggression.”
Both should make for top-notch spectating.
Putting on an international-level sports event calls to mind the heady days of 1990, when Durango hosted the first ever UCI Mountain Bike World Championship. That took hard work, some unabashed chutzpah by event organizers, and generous local donations. It also confirmed Durango as the Rocky Mountain Mecca for the sport, providing a boon for the community that continues today.
This event has potential to be much the same. Marcus Garcia, owner of the Rock Lounge, deserves credit for bringing the event. An enthusiastic advocate for climbing in all seasons, he has remained bouyant despite low funding figures and unseasonable autumn temperatures.
He is also confident that Durango can become a popular ice-climbing hub in the very near future.
That belief plays into his other role this week. He will select the team that will compete in the World Cup competition in France in February from the climbers ages 13 to 20 competing at Ska on Wednesday and Thursday.
We wish Garcia and every climber cold temperatures and all the best.
