Deal in the works to preserve access at Ouray Ice Park amid liability concerns
The liability concern sweeping popular recreation lands in Colorado has come to a world-renowned destination for ice climbing.
For decades during winter’s freezing days and nights, crews have run water from pipes and shower heads down the Uncompahgre River Gorge to form huge curtains and daggers that call to tens of thousands of axe- and crampon-equipped visitors every year. They come as well for an annual festival around Ouray Ice Park. The nonprofit tied to the park is gearing up for the 29th Ouray Ice Festival, set for Jan. 18-21.
Ahead of then, an effort is afoot to “make sure (the park) is around for generations to come,” said Peter O’Neil, executive director of nonprofit Ouray Ice Park, Inc.
Said Eric Jacobson: “You know, our legislature kind of fell apart in patching some holes (this) year in the Colorado Recreational Use Statute.”
Jacobson is the longtime owner of the historic Ouray Hydroelectric Power Plant and land that ice climbers have used ever since one, Gary Wild, pitched his vision for the park over beers with Jacobson. That was 1994, Jacobson recalled.
“Sure, you folks can do whatever crazy thing you want to do,” went his response. “But I don’t want to be on the hook for it.”
Now he fears he could be.
In March, the Colorado Judiciary Committee killed Senate Bill 103 that aimed to amend the Recreational Use Statute, which came under scrutiny in 2019. That year a judge awarded a mountain biker $7.3 million for injuries sustained over a washed-out trail at the Air Force Academy.
Mine claim owners responded by closing their properties along parts of hiking trails on popular 14,000-foot mountains, while a coalition called Fix CRUS has sounded the alarm for more losses across private lands.
In its effort to propose another amendment, the coalition has focused on the Recreational Use Statute’s exemption for “willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a known dangerous condition.” That seems to require impossible watch on the landowner’s part, some have suggested.
The idea is to simplify language, a Fix CRUS spokesperson previously told The Gazette, whereby visitors “assume the risks unless there’s something malicious going on.”
Jacobson and others in Ouray are hoping they don’t have to wait for any amendment in order to welcome ice climbers.
O’Neil counted himself “100% confident” in a usual return of access this winter. That, he said, would be thanks to the continued generosity of Jacobson.
Jacobson is in talks with the city to donate the ice climbing land, thereby relieving himself of liability, while still running his power plant.
The city intends to insure the land like any of its public parks. City Administrator Silas Clarke cited governmental/municipal immunity as an “extra layer of protection.”
The parties are working through an extra layer of complexity: The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission oversees Jacobson’s power plant and associated penstock spanning the ice park, meaning any such transaction would have to be cleared by the agency.
As it stands, between the Recreational Use Statute and the federal energy commission, “it’s like we’ve got the irresistible force meeting the immovable object situation,” Jacobson said.
Asked how confident he was in an ice climbing season, he said: “I’ve got my attorneys, and like every attorney, they want to totally protect their client from any ill consequences. … I think we’re getting to the point where we’ve just gotta do something.”
That would be for the benefit of the city, O’Neil said.
“What I always say is, the ice park is to Ouray what the ski hill is to Telluride,” he said.
An economic study last year found the ice park directly or indirectly benefited Ouray to the tune of $17.8 million every year. The ice park “absolutely drives our economy,” Clarke said.
Jacobson is well aware of the benefit on the town he loves — explaining, he said, why he is not seeking payment for his property. Recently, to maintain public access, The Conservation Fund announced acquiring parts of Mount Democrat from a liability-concerned landowner in an undisclosed purchase.
How long it’ll take for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn around Ouray Ice Park, Jacobson wasn’t sure. But “good-hearted people are really, really, really trying to come up with a workaround here,” he said.
Paul King of Golden climbs in the Ouray Ice Park in the Uncompahgre Gorge on the edge of the southwestern Colorado town of Ouray on Feb. 27, 2021.