Ascent Notes for: Geronimo - 5.7 popular Average Rating : 4.31/5

Hey floridaputz, I'm the "old guy" you met on this route ;-) Swung leads with ladybug, who had some route-finding issues on the 3rd pitch. Really nice route; highly recommend it.

Really nice climb with an easy approach. I found it a little more tricky than you would think. The climbing is easy but the long pitches and complicated descent make this a challange for a new leader. The views of cloud tower are awesome.

We found the approach to this rather tricky. It was clear what formation this route was on (from the SuperTopo and Falcon guides), but after the 60+ minute hike in - finding the specific route was tricky. There are several climbers trails that branch off the Knoll trail towards the formation - and we lost a decent chunk of time to find the route.

And even in the fall, there was indeed a line. We ended only doing the first 2/3 pitches - with a team of 4 (1 leader only) before nightfall. Falcon lists it as a 5 pitch - and breaks up the 2nd pitch with an alternate belay. You can link the 2 pitches (the 5.7 and the shorter 5.3) with a 60m rope - just barely. A bit of rope drag, but not too bad.

Very fun climb - steep, but with huge jugs and huecos the whole way up. Takes protection quite well, but fairly long pitches so plan it out.

You can rap from the top of the 2nd pitch (or 3rd pitch if you don't link them) on a pair of bolts with slings. Double rope rap to the giant ledge above the first pitch, then slings and rings on a boulder to the base. Double rope-raps for both. There is an alternate descent further to the right down a gully - with some big chockstones slung with webbing. These are single-rope raps.

very fun, low-stress climbing. very popular. there was a team of three in front and a two-man team behind our team of three.we shared raps in the dark with the team behind us. a cross-over of ropes on the last rappel neccesitated a trip for my pardner on ascender to rearrange, after which we had a clean pull. I led p1 and 3.

Had a great time climbing Geronimo. The route becomes obvious as you approach the Jackrabbit Buttress. I highly recommend the Handren guidebook with color photos for the approach and the topos of the route. P1 and 2 are straightforward up cracks with good face features, both topping out on large ledges. P1 ledge has slung rope/webbing around a boulder and on P2 I slung a boulder myself for the anchor (for the rappel there are two bolts slung with webbing). P3 follows a crack to faceclimbing and up to smaller ledge with room for two where you can build an anchor. My rope was dragging and I built my anchor on a tighter spot about 10 feet below this better spot. P4 climbs some face/arete to the small summit with a bolted anchor. Good fun, now for the rappel. P4 and 3 are done in one rappel back to the P2 ledge. Pulled the ropes, no problem here, I was glad because I'd heard this thing was notorious for eating ropes. Did the rappel from here down to the P1 ledge, go to pull the ropes and here we go. Didn't have my technique quite right and failed to give that final sharp tug as I felt the rope begin pulling itself through the anchor. It subsequently slid out and fell gently down onto the featured face above the P1 ledge and snagged in about 5 differently places, shit. No amount of flinging was getting this thing free, shit. I untied my ropes and had to abandon the stuck cord as 8pm was approaching and I hadn't called in a late-exit with BLM and we had to get down. Knew I couldn't make the last rappel with only one rope so I told my partner I was rappelling to the halfway point of P1 and building an anchor there by slinging a big horn, he'd rap down to me, we'd pull the rope, set up the last 30m rappel at this new anchor and we'd be down. Got there, built the anchor, got him down to me, pulled the rope, free end falls down below us, start feeding my end through and pulling up to the halfway point and, shit. It's snagged below us. New plan, I rap down on what rope I've got free, unfuck the snag, build a quick anchor for me so I can get off rappel and let my partner get down past me, get back on rappel then we'd be down. I get to the snag, it's fucked, big time. I've never seen a rope do this. So I build the second anchor by slinging another horn, he raps down to me again, and we start cutting rope. I cut a long enough length of rope that I can fix a single line for him to rap down on, it's dark now and I can sense his nervousness. This is his third day of climbing, way to break in a new partner. Thanfully, he was smart enough to be carrying a knife otherwise we'd be boned. Once he got down I cut another long enough piece of rope to do a double rappel and not leave anything more than my two anchors on the P1 face. Got down, walked out way late, good news though - no ticket from the BLM. Over some tailgate beers in the parking lot, I remarked it took me 8 years of climbing to see something that messed up, him only 3 days. Overall it was a loss of one complete 60m rope, four slings, four biners, and one 60m turned into two 25m ropes. Has anyone been out there in the last month to say if the rope and slings are still there? I posted on mountainproject and summitpost letting everyone know that stuff was out there. By now I probably wouldn't trust the rope or slings if they're still there, but they're yours if you want them. I rated the climb a 4 overall because it was a lot of fun on the ascent with a fantastic top out and views of downtown Vegas. The mess on the rappel was largely due to poor rope manangement on my part so I won't let that ruin my opinion of the climb, just be careful on the way down...and bring a knife just in case.

I led pitches 2 and 4 and got off-route both times; this seems to be very easy to do. Bring photocopied topo if you cant bring a book. It was no big deal except for noting that I missed some good aretes both times, after I checked the book. Also I climbed a very sketchy 4th class boulder pile on top of pitch 4 which scared the crap out of me, because I thought it was going to collapse at any second, and it was also covered with snow. Little did I know the real climb was way right of me. Also there is some very expensive gear stuck in the wall halfway up the 2nd pitch. If you have a link cam, don't retract it fully to fit in a crack! Dur. We had not too much issue with the descent, and stayed out of any gullies, though the last (3rd) double rope rap was pretty hard to pull our rope down from due to it being set too far back from the edge--the knot was hard to get over the lip when we pulled it. Other than that, I have no idea why this would be rated 5.7. There were no 5.7 moves anywhere on the climb and in general it was a 5.5/5.4 jugfest. Very steep for the grade though!

The Rap eats ropes. Might want to bring a rope bag, and rappel out of it rather than tossing the ropes.

fun

We ran out of time.

Took hours on approach due to confusing topo.
Ran out of water due to broken Camelbak.
Had to re-climb 3rd pitch due to rope issues.
Spent 30 minutes deciding whether or not to take leader off belay because the only way we could hear each other was through echoes.
Was scared out of our minds that one of our ropes would get caught on the double rap.
Crashed through multiple cacti walking back to the car after dark with only 1 headlamp between the 2 of us.

Easy climb made completely disastrous!