OURAY, Colo. -- I held tight to a knotted rope as I slipped and slid over rock and ice, down the steep bank of the Uncompahgre River, to the frozen floor of the Ouray Ice Park.

It was the easiest way to the bottom of the gorge -- the way beginners get down to the area known as ''the schoolroom,'' my husband assured me.

At the bottom, I could hear the mostly frozen river rushing under the ice and see climbers in bright yellow, red and black jackets slowly chopping and kicking, smoothly pulling themselves up and down vertical ice and rock, like four-legged spiders crawling over frozen waterfalls.

Carolyn Parker, an accomplished guide -- who later would belay expert climbers from all over the world down a much deeper, steeper part of the canyon for the Ouray Ice Festival competition -- offered me two ''lightweight'' steel axes, ``just to get a feel for ice climbing.''

Then she chopped a tiny target hole in the 30-foot wall of ice in front of us.

When I flicked my right wrist forward as she instructed, the ax stuck in the wall somewhere near the target -- about once in six tries. None of my left-handed swings hit their mark. Parker suggested I might want to forget the axes and try hugging the frozen waterfall in front of me and pushing my way up the wall of ice.

Which I will definitely try.

Next year.

For this year, I was happy that Ouray has made ice climbing a beautiful spectator sport. Dozens of routes are visible from the rim of the gorge and within an easy walk of the tiny town's hotels, shops and restaurants.

''The beauty is, the ice park is a stone's throw from all the comforts of home, so anybody can climb'' -- or at least watch, says Erin Eddy, the park's executive director.

Carefully walk out over either bridge spanning the ice park in winter, and you're in a surrealistic world of sparkling crystal chandeliers, sheer walls of ice, dense blue columns and ruffles of foamy white that look like overflows from a giant can of shaving cream.

Elite rock and ice climbers from all over the world compete during the festival in mid-January. But the mile-long park is open, free, every day from mid-December through the end of March to anyone who wants to strap on a helmet and crampons and give ice climbing a try -- or watch.

When four skiers piled out of a car at the high bridge where I was taking pictures one afternoon, I heard one ask, ''Where are we? What is this?'' then exclaim, ``Oh, my gosh, there are people out there on that ice! Look, they are climbing up icicles!''

''This is Ouray. I told you, you had to see it,'' said the skier who had obviously talked her friends into stopping.

ALL ABOUT ICE

Tiny Ouray, in the San Juan mountains of southwest Colorado, has about 800 full-time residents. Nearly all of them are somehow involved in the ice festival, held every year in January.

Besides the climbing competition, the five-day festival offers more than 70 clinics on subjects ranging from ''Introduction to Ice'' to ''Hard Mixed'' (rock and ice) climbing, slide shows, a pancake breakfast and an open-air trade show.

You can try equipment for free, get instruction from some of the best climbers in the world, run in the snowshoe race, watch the death-defying professional slackline competition (on a tightrope that stretches across the canyon with safety lines to catch those who fall), enter the ax-throwing contest, introduce your children to ice at the Kids Climbing College or just watch.