Penny Price curled up on a couch at the foot of a climbing wall, plotting out how she’d try and get to the top.

The 8-year-old’s parents and other surrounding climbers toyed with a smartphone app that connects to the wall, letting them create routes by lighting up an array of climbing knobs.

Penny’s family has come to the Basecamp Ouray bouldering gym on weekday evenings like this one since she was 3 years old. Now, she’s old enough to design routes for her mom. Over time in the gym, Penny has not only become a stronger climber herself but loves observing others at work, and spending time around them too.

Between climbs, Penny admired the strength of a local female ice climber, who was practicing on an aerial silk hanging from the ceiling across the room. She also watched ice climbing guides duking it out on a Ping-Pong table after a work day as an audience watched, snacked and chatted.

Other ice climbers and members of the UIAA Youth Ice Climbing team cheered each other on as they hacked away at a dry tooling structure. On her way out after practice, a local youth team member, Zoe Schiffer, gave Penny a big hug.

Being a part of Basecamp Ouray — what some call Ouray’s Living Room — has made Penny feel like her family has gotten a little bigger.

“I feel like everybody here I know, even if I haven’t seen their face before, I feel like I’m related to them,” she said.

Building Basecamp

Founder Logan Tyler, a Ouray local, opened the Basecamp Ouray bouldering gym in 2019 determined to connect the community.

“I went to a lot of the bigger gyms in the Front Range and throughout the country, and noticed that with these kinds of mega gyms that they’re, like, pretty cliquey and actually kind of isolating,” Tyler said.

He wanted to create a smaller space where people could walk in not knowing anybody, and walk out with friends and climbing partners. He envisioned a watering hole that wasn’t centered on drinking culture, he said. Day passes are available, but most commonly people buy membership packages which allow them to access the space and gather 24 hours a day. Basecamp also includes a guiding company that operates in collaboration with co-owner Kaden Anderson who runs a separate guiding company, Canyoning Colorado, out of the space during the summer.

Earl the three-legged dog enjoys the crowd gathered to watch the third annual Ping-Pong Throwdown at Basecamp Ouray on Jan. 24. Earl belongs to Kaden Anderson, who co-owns the bouldering gym and also owns Canyoning Colorado. Erin McIntyre – Ouray County Plaindealer

Basecamp first opened in a storefront next to Ouray’s Wright Opera House. But moving the old movie theater in 2022 allowed Tyler to really build out his vision. It took months of 14-hour days and ripping out about 300 movie theater seats. As a nod to its former use, Tyler left one creaky row of seven red seats where people now gather to watch climbing and Ping-Pong.

Ouray resident Kelan Jones sits in the audience of Basecamp Ouray’s annual Ping-Pong Throwdown, watching from a row of old movie theater seats. In 2022, co-founder Logan Tyler transformed the former movie theater into a bouldering gym and community watering hole equipped with a kitchen, weight room, coworking space and more. Erin McIntyre – Ouray County Plaindealer

Crafting community

As Tyler intended, Basecamp’s members have shaped a community over time.

The space sees a tidal flow of membership throughout the seasons. It’s often where people reconnect in the winter after living elsewhere.

“Basecamp has been such a source of stability and community for me,” said Alana Kamahele, a seasonal member who comes to the space almost every day.

For years, Penny was the kid other Basecamp members hid candy and coins on the climbing holds for. Now she helps Basecamp’s youngest climber, 3-yearold Ryder Purvis, up routes so he can find the hidden treats.

Lance Smith holds his daughter, Poppy, as both prepare to watch 10-year-old Cassidy Smith compete in Basecamp Ouray’s annual Ping-Pong Throwdown on Jan. 24. The father-son duo are regulars at the multi-purpose bouldering gym and had been practicing for months ahead of the tournament. Erin McIntyre – Ouray County Plaindealer

Local guide Jeff Mascero, who sets the routes in the winter in exchange for using the space, always designs a “Ryder route” for youngsters when he’s building out the central bouldering wall.

Mallorie Estenson, who has guided for Basecamp for a few years, started gathering people for informal movie nights last winter, where they project films onto the bouldering walls.

Tyler and his team facilitate more formal community events, too.

Last month, the gym hosted its third annual Ping-Pong Throwdown.

Basecamp Ouray guide Spencer Purvis battles it out during the final round of the gym’s annual Ping-Pong competition on Jan. 24, as the crowd watches with rapt attention. Basecamp Ouray is a community hub that some call Ouray’s living room, especially in the winter when ice climbers use it as a home base. Erin McIntyre – Ouray County Plaindealer

An audience of more than 60 people packed into the gym for the tournament — even clambering atop climbing structures for a better view — cheering and visiting with new and old friends. Penny’s friend and Basecamp member, 10-year-old Cassidy Smith, entered as the tournament’s youngest competitor. He’d been coming to the gym to practice with his dad, Lance, for months. Some argue people prepare more for the Ping-Pong tournament than the ice climbing competition held the next day. “This is the vision I was talking about,” Tyler said, smiling as he watched the crowd hoot, swing paddles and fist bump between games.

Tyler is all about letting Basecamp’s members shape the physical hub itself as much as they shape its community.

Beyond Basecamp’s bedrock climbing gym and guiding services, the space is a member cooperative that operates an ever-evolving patchwork of people and resources to meet the dreams and needs of its membership.

“That space is all about fulfilling the needs within the community. And so I try to listen to what everybody says, and develop that space to meet their needs. I think at the end of the day, I’m more like a scientist than a business guy. It’s like, well, everything’s an experiment, and we’re going to run that experiment,” Tyler said.

He incorporated a lofted co-working space after a community member said it would help fill a niche downtown.

During the pandemic, member Aaron Silverman set up a permanent computer monitor for remote work, which he still uses and lets others share as needed. Even the weight room and racks of climbing gear function as a hodgepodge of shared equipment. Most often if people see others need to borrow something, they’ll offer them their own.

“There’s a lot of trust here, because I think even though we are not shared owners, I think people feel a sense of ownership over the space,” Silverman said.

He fits in climbs between meetings and loves bringing his three kids in to play before and after school. Sometimes he’ll plan a Basecamp session with Penny’s dad, Chris, to climb together.

This year, a member wanted to practice with aerial silks, so Tyler helped install one from the ceiling, which a group of female climbers routinely gathers to practice on.

Basecamp Operations Director Lexi Cady said they bought a heater after receiving feedback via a member survey. The space often becomes a warming hut for people who come to Ouray living in cars and vans during the winter months.

Whatever it is, Tyler is eager to equip Basecamp-goers with what they may need, even when it means creating something from scratch for them individually.

Kamahele said while she was in Ouray for the season this summer, Tyler helped her build out tailored training grounds for a specific type of climbing competition she was training for.

“I think Logan’s a big dreamer and I think he allows other people to dream in this space,” she said.

Lia Salvatierra is a journalist with Report for America, a service program that helps boost underserved areas with more reporting resources.

Editor’s note: This is another installment of our features on “third places” here in Ouray County.

Third places, a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in the 1980s, are places where people gather and socialize.

Your first place is your home, your second place is your work, and your third place is a place you interact with others voluntarily. Third places “host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work,” he wrote. If you want to know more about third places, you can check out several books written by Oldenburg on the subject, as well as “Bowling Alone,” by Robert Putnam.

Third places can be many different types of gathering spaces. Here in Ouray County, we are rich with third places where people connect and belong. Have an idea for a future “third place” we could feature? Contact erin@ouraynews.com.