Thin Ice 

Pitch 2 totally spanked me - I've never done anything quite like it. Perhaps I did it wrong...and I don't remeber P3 being particularly strenuous. Old age perhaps.

Pitches 2 and 3 can be combined with a 60 meter rope. Makes for a real long and strenuous pitch of climbing. If you do this, be very cognizant of rope drag.

I personally believe that the crux of the route comes right off the second belay despite the fact that that pitch is rated easier (5.9) than the previous pitch (5.10-). Won't say anymore about it; just don't think your difficulties are over just because you completed the hardest rated pitch.

Pitch 2: the trick to getting past the flared V is to layback the edge of the crack. It's kind of scary, but the easiest way. Directly jamming the groove looks burly.

Speaking from personal experience, directly jamming the v-groove sucks. Though normally a reserved climber, everyone on the adjacent spires had no problems hearing my frustration on this section.

My buddy worked his tail off there too. I didn't find it that bad but I have better technique than he does. wink wink

A team ahead of us was rapping from the end of P1, advertising they "heard P2 isn't that good." Pardon the hyperbolic comparison, but this is like doing the Enduro Corner and blowing off the Harding Slot (not that I have). Thin Ice is all the better for the ways the ice suddenly thickens, P2 requiring altogether different skills.
My two cents: do the route in two long pitches (so long as you're comfortable with running it out a bit on 5.8/9 handcracks -- the last sections of each pitch).
The crux of P1 protects nicely with stoppers and small cams and involves face-climbing around the crack as much as not.
The crux of P2, so abundantly documented above, is right off the belay, but then it keeps going. The liebackers are 5.12 climbers or, at the least, top-ropers. My angle: snug finger-locks with right hand; right toe in the corner/crack; left foot and knee in a kind of scummy knee-bar (see photo #2). Add a couple of comfortable stem stances and some chimneying and voila, a birth of the old-fashioned, grinding type.
Belay below the summit (just above the Sentinel Oak) for protection from that Needles sirocco.

I don't know why you'd rap off after the first pitch unless you've done it before and are just warming up. The second pitch is terrific!

I am staring at a scar the size of a dime that I ground into the back of my right hand (2 or 3 years ago) by jamming P2 without tape... mostly because I decided to rack up on my gear loops. (Don't do that.)

Facing towards the Wizard and walking up with your scapula while palming yourself into the groove was a good strategy. Someone else passed it along to me and I wouldn't have made much progress without it, so here it is for others to consider.

Sure it's a grunt (pitch 2), but summits do matter.

Meanwhile, if you're traveling with another party, one of the best photo opps in the Needles is a profile of the leader as they climb the first pitch in the late afternoon, especially if you're over near Fancy Free or thereabouts. An Old West shadow-cutout silhouette -- I'll have to bring my camera next time I do something on the Charlatan and post it. Once upon a time, Kern County (I think the Chamber of Commerce?) had a billboard campaign using this as their promotional image... I guess it was too successful because I haven't seen it in years ;-)

Thin Ice richly deserves its status as an area classic.

wow. Wow. WOW!

P1 - Long pitch. 55m+++. 10b (++++ for the pump) While not move is terribly difficult, the pitch is amazingly sustained through the first 40m (until the traverse right). Save some handsize cams for the last 30 feet getting to the belay. The description above appears to split P1, which isn't usually done.

P2 - 30m. 10a. Maybe I'm a sicko, but I found this pitch fun and not too bad (my wife would disagree). My strategy - back against the flare, lots of arm bars and jams with the right hand, and whatever it took with the left hand and left foot/knee. I belayed right about 30m, where there was a chockstone/flake in the crack and a small stance.

P3 - 30m. 5.8 or 5.9. Fun cruising.

Descent - We did a two rope rap to the base of Spooky in the notch between the Sorcerer and the Charlatan. From there you could either scramble left (looked awful?), rap down to the base of Fancy Free (two ropes) or like we did - climb out Spooky (5.9). We had brought along two big cams (#4 and #5 camalot) for Spooky. NOTE: If you bring one rope for the rappel be VERY careful. With one rope, you'll be left hanging on an exposed ledge and need to traverse off.