Brian did a really great job of chopping out this belay ledge, huh?

That would be a joke. After establishing the first belay at a somewhat sloping stance, Brian resolved to find the flattest spots on the route the rest of the day, and did a great job in following through on that resolution.

Brian: I set up the belay where I learned five things.

1. Find a flat spot if at all possible. I wasn't leaning off the anchor and standing there at an angle played havoc with my back.
2. Coming from a rock background it is annoying to not be able to tell immediately if your protection is sound. You start turning what appears to be a good screw in solid ice only to find an air pocket halfway through. Crank it back out and try again (another theme for the trip).
3. Trusting just two screws for a belay is disconcerting.
4. I don't like the looks of 13 cm screws. I should probably have used them as a third piece in the belay if finding good ice for the first two pieces wasn't such a pain in the ass.
5. Mike and I are idiots for failing to take the caps off the screws before we left the first belay. Failing to take them off at subsequent belays further compounded our stupidity. For the first few pitches I had to remove the cap from each new screw used in turn.

Sorry to do this to ya, bud, and it's so easy, what with those edit/upload rights and all, but I did mention the cap thing while racking up. But I know we had other things on our mind. And I have a tendency to mumble. Won't happen again.