>Keiko Tanaka climbs at The Ice Coop on Feb. 17, 2021, in Boulder. The Ice Coop is a dedicated indoor dry tooling and ice climbing gym where climbers use ice axes and crampons on climbing holds mounted on plywood walls. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)
With her purple ponytail dangling beneath a grey helmet, Ceri Evans kicked one crampon-clad foot, then the other, into the plywood walls of The Ice Coop, a unique Boulder climbing gym, on a recent snowy Wednesday evening.
Smoothly and purposefully, 15-year-old Evans began placing the sharp metal tips of her bright orange ice climbing tools onto holds attached to the wall, periodically biting the handle of one tool as she readjusted her grasp.