I’m back in the office after a busy 3 days at the Ouray Ice Festival in Colorado. Whew, I’m a bit knackered! You know I must be hurting because I’ve abandoned my beloved stand up desk for an adjacent sit down desk. It was a cold weekend with temperatures not rising much above 10 degrees and packed morning to night with events.
There was stiff competition for the events this year. I don’t recall such a strong field in the USA all going head to head for the podium. As predicted, the Europeans kicked our butts. Climbing is much more established and supported over there. I placed 8th in the main event, the difficulty competition held on Saturday. The full list of men’s speed climbing competition results has not been published yet so I don’t know where I landed in the line up. I had hoped to do much better in the speed, but the cold, brittle and fragile ice conditions didn’t seem to match up with the techniques I was using. Nor did the ice for that matter, I was tearing it apart. With so many skilled competitors the little details end up making a big difference (much like web design). As always, I wish I had done this or that a little better, but with the intensity of a crowd cheering loudly and only a couple minutes to work with “on stage”, you just go out there and give it all you have and hope it goes well. Once the comp is over, you rally again on the dance floor late into the night only to wake up early and do it once more for the speed competition. No wonder I’m tired!
The ice festivals are sort of like an Outdoor Retailer trade show held outside with more a focus on fun, competitions and climbing than direct business. It was also nice to see a few of HotWax’s clients like Black Diamond (http://blackdiamondequipment.com/) and Scarpa (http://scarpa.com) outside of the conference room. I liken it all to a traveling circus with the next stop being the upcoming Outdoor Retailer Winter Tradeshow (http://www.outdoorretailer.com/winter-market/) and following that, the Teva Winter Games (http://www.mountaingames.com/event-detail-winter/Mixed-Climbing.aspx) held in Vail, Colorado. Maybe I’ll see you there! Till then, over and out!
Jason Nelson
HotWax Media Designer
Video of Jason’s Speed Climb
P.S. I was the slower one in the red and black. Will Mayo is the other climber. Also, thanks to Kate Higgins for shooting this video.
