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Join us in supporting our million dollar capital campaign, Our Water Our Future, and help bring a new water source into the Ouray Ice Park that will ensure our sustainability for the next 25 years. Ways to Contribute: 1. You can donate to our campaign via our website: 2. OR via our GoFundMe page: *All donations of $500 dollars or more through our website and GoFundMe page will receive name recognition on a new donor wall at Dick's Chalet in the Park. 3. Shop OWOF merchandise: As a nonprofit organization, our mission at the Ouray Ice Park is to create and operate a free, public ice climbing park — every season. This business of ice not only serves the climbing community, but also supports the winter economy of the town of Ouray. Building an ice park every year comes at a cost though, as well as A LOT of water. For the past 27 years, the Ouray Ice Park has farmed ice using excess water from the City of Ouray storage tanks. Our water supply each season is determined by how much water is coming into those tanks, and how much is being used in town. We get to use the overflow. The problem with this is that we simply don’t have enough water from the overflow to farm ice throughout the entire park, as well as all new terrain we are developing, within the 6 week timeframe we have to build the Park before opening. Some seasons, this causes us to have to choose which parts of the Park to farm first, and can deter us from opening the entire Park until well into January. As many of you know, the Ice Park gets crowded! Last year alone we had 22,000 climbers in the Park within our three month operating season, a 30% increase from the previous year, and this year our numbers are up again by 9%. Having more water will allow us to farm more terrain so we can spread these climbers out through more of the Park with lots of big blue ice to climb! What Our Water Our Future is designed to do is make us water independent from the City of Ouray by bringing in a new water source that will supply us with 5X more water than we have ever had before. We have already secured three, non-consumptive water rights from the Ouray Silver Mines, and want to begin construction on our own independent water supply line by May, with the water infrastructure finished before the start of the next ice climbing season. This is where you come in! Our Water Our Future has already raised $250,000 from private individuals and foundations, and we are currently in the process of applying for additional grants totaling almost $500,000. Now we need the ice climbing community to step up and help us raise the remaining $250,000 that we need to hit our million dollar goal! Why is this so important? Because the ability to farm ice sustainably with no environmental impact will help secure the future of the Ouray Ice Park for years to come and ensure that the City of Ouray remains a thriving and vibrant community in the winter. It will create a better experience for our ice climbers, and will ensure the next generation has access to this incredible resource. Please, contribute what you can, share this campaign with your fellow climbers, and help us make this campaign successful!
