My friend Doug and I have been talking about doing some ice climbing for the last couple of months. We have done exactly one climb together which was the full pull on the 3rd flatiron a 1200ft 5.6 that was runout enough to convince me he was ready for the Rigid Designator on his first day of ice climbing. Of course may of you know Doug a Nature. He has put on Sushi fests for many years and of course knows many of you. Now you probably need to know I have never done RD and was not sure I ever would as I have been working 40 hours a week at a desk job for the better part of 3 decades.
0well anyway Doug seems game so he picks me up at 6am and off to Vail we go. Now I have been wanting to do this climb ever since buying my first set of ice tools and promptly coming out to CO in the early 90's. We did silverplume as my first ice lead and then went to vail and did spiral staircase. I remember walking by the rigid and the fang and going wow.
Now you have to remember that that the RD is steeped in fame it was probably done sometime in the early 1800's. I had heard that the guy that did it first could squeeze the milk out of a coconut with each hand. So needless to say I did not know if I was up to the task. So we promptly walked up to the RD amphitheater. We walked right up to it and I promptly decided that we should keep walking right on by as the thing is a monster and I barely got 8 hours of sleep last night. So we just walk right on by that bad ass piece of ice and walk right up to the a much easier piece of ice. We do the Spiral Staircase which is Doug's actual first vertical ice climb ever. We cruise it so at that moment I know we are ready. We bravely move the 200m over to our right and start the Designator in what some have recently described as the easiest conditions they have ever seen. This gives me immense confidence and I just fly up the climb which is obviously only 4+. I hammer away and actually climb it pretty decent and finish the onsite of what is obviously a solid 5 now that I have actually sent it. Doug had some fun and I think he did awesome for his first ice climb. Of course he may never be able to cut bait again after climbing 50 feet of cauliflower ice with interesting technique. Well after that we decided to call it a day but thought we would do the ice climb community a favor by getting the exact measurement of how far the fang pillar was from touching. I think it was exactly 1.3 meters. So give it 5 more days and somebody will be cranking some hard ice or we could all go have the largest margarita party on that side of the divide.