Friday: we were both toasted from a 2:30am arrival. Slept in and headed for Geronimo (5.7), a 5 pitch climb near Olive Oil. Swain makes it sound pretty good. A reasonable approach took us to an obvious crack system. The climbing was OK - very easy - but the holds weren't that trustworthy so I was climbing slowly. The next pitch was a bit funkier - sort of hard to protect. Ended on a big ledge with a great view of Crimson Crysalis. Then a bogus pitch on less than perfect rock to a huge ledge. After groveling under the fierce brush we found a rather nice short pitch and a good final pitch. Elaborate register on top! The climb was sort of OK but very easy (Jim said 5.5 or so) and a bit pointless. The descent was another matter - an OK rap followed by 3 raps down a nasty rope eating chimney. Almost had to cut an end off Jim's rope. Took almost as long down as up. Definitely no where near as good as Olive Oil.
The one useful thing we did was stop at the visitor center and register for early entry / exit for the next day.
Saturday: Up at 5am to bag Black Orpheus. Did this climb with Mike Soo and a strange Canadian - Al - who got us to haul his 50 pound pack whenever he led a pitch. Not the greatest day so I was eager to try it again.
About 50 minutes on the approach - not to bad. Nobody else on the route either. Two very good pitches and then a long easy section took us to the good stuff. The first 5.9 crux is a joke for tall folks - way easy - but the dihedral above was quite exciting. Especially since you really can't get good wires in because the crack is very parallel. Should have taken a couple of #1 tri-cams! The next pitch is the crux. I blatently cheated by doing a long stem out from the right, completely avoiding all hard climbing. Tall folks rule! Jim couldn't even come close to duplicating this move and had to use ability instead of height. The rest of the climb was great and we topped out around 5:30. The descent is fine until the streambed - the endless toiling over boulders seems to get longer every time. Even without lights we pretty much stayed on trail the whole way back - 13 hours car to car. We were the only ones in the lot without a ticket - that late exit thing is the way to go!
Sunday: We're beat. After the breakfast buffet in the Silverton, we ambled up to do some sport climbing. Weather was iffy and we decided to keep it short. I backed off a 10a on Dog Wall but Jim fired up it easily. He also cruised the adjacent 10b while I had to hang and whine. Then we headed for the Sandstone Quarry - the Mass Production wall. Good place for wimps - it had some 8's and 9's beside the hard stuff. I led an 8, a 9 (I had to use Jim's stick clip though - boooo!), and another 9. I TR'ed a 10a and Jim managed to get up an 11. I didn't even try the 11 I was so out of shape. All in all a decent day even if it was sport climbing.
Monday: Up at 4:30 for Epinephrine. Rained as we drove up the road - back to bed by 5:30. I managed to sleep in late while Jim was wide awake. Rained hard - no chance to climb at all! I drove up to Mt. Charleston to get out of the rain; it was snowing there instead. Lots of big limestone up there! Rest of the day we farted around on the strip and relaxed.
Tuesday: Back to Epinephrine! This time we're super rested and ready to roll. Parking lot at 6am. Climbing before 7. The chimneys are fun, fun, fun and we're up them (7 pitches) by 10:45. There's more fixed gear (cams and rap stations) than before so that helps a lot. Jim is really fast in the chimneys even with a pack to drag and we're in good shape. Jim offers to lead pitch 10 (the first of the upper 9's) to give me a break (he's normally happy to follow most pitches); I get the second 5.9 pitch and he takes one more, a long 5.8 crack. A new bolt makes the last 5.9 pitch more like 5.7 and we're finally on a big ledge. Unlike last time, there are fixed rap stations down from here (but not from the very top!) and we could have rapped.
On more real pitch to the top and we're up around 3:30. Great time for 14 pitches! But we're not up - we took a long time to do the "easy" pitches - they are somewhat wet from the rain and extremely exposed. We finally hit the top around 4:30. Jim had a phone and we both called our families - pretty wierd! The main problem was that we were pretty fogged in - no way to see the landmarks for the descent. I was pretty sure I knew where to go but NOOOO! After about 10 minutes without a cairn I decided we were lost. Unfortunately I then pointed us in the wrong direction and we got even more lost. Finally we had to reclimb to the summit and start all over. One we found the cairns it went just fine and we didn't need headlamps until the last 15 or 20 minutes. We returned at 7pm, 13 hours car to car.
So that was it - I had to go to LA (where I was totally wasted the next day!) and Jim headed back. Epinephrine is a seriously cool route - all in all an excellent trip.