  We introduce a simple and practical method to create ultrashort intense
optical vortices for applications involving high-intensity lasers. Our method
utilizes femtosecond laser pulses to laser-etch grating lines into
laser-quality gold mirrors. These grating lines holographically encode an
optical vortex. We derive mathematical equations for each individual grating
line to be etched, for any desired (integer) topological charge. We investigate
the smoothness of the etched grooves. We show that they are smooth enough to
produce optical vortices with an intensity that is only a few percent lower
than in the ideal case. We demonstrate that the etched gratings can be used in
a folded version of our 2f-2f setup [Mariyenko et al., Opt. Express 19, 7599
(2005)] to compensate angular dispersion. Lastly, we show that the etched
gratings withstand intensities of up to 10^12 W/cm2.
