With my friend Jack having moved to Vail this past year, spending a few weekends climbing in Vail was on the must do list this year. I sent most of the first pitch routes in the Fang Amphitheater, including the 3rd ascent of Steel Balls (M9). My main Vail goat was a route called Red Bull and Vodka (M11) that I had seen Harry Berger and Ines Papert get the first ascents of a couple years ago. On Ines’ redpoint attempt, she got to the ice and a horizontal fracture line appeared going about 40 ft. The whole Fang pillar, that was not yet touching down, cut loose and plummeted toward me and my friends. It was surreal and in slow motion, it seemed I had plenty of time to run away. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have gotten hit by it, but it was so big that the sky went dark as it passed by.
So why would I want to climb such a thing? That’s a good question. I guess because it’s one of the coolest looking and hardest routes in Vail. My buddy Jack, worked the route out for me, gave me the beta, and I got the “hero” send on it. I’m not sure if getting instructions yelled from about 50 ft. while upside down on a horizontal roof is really helpful, but the company was nice. My send of the route was either the 3rd or 4th ascent of the route. Yes, the thought of the Fang Pillar snapping on me did occur as I stemmed over onto it. It was so good to get my weight off my arms that I was pretty OK with it though. The ice went for about 35 ft. and was bullet hard, like glass. The fusion ice tools have too steep of a pick angle, and thus I had to work hard to finish the final section.
Thanks to Stanley (Stanislav Vrba) for taking these photos!
