I wake up to the buzzing of an alarm at 5:30am. I'm in a bed. In my recently awakened state it takes me about a full minute to realize that I'm in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I feel so rested, despite the fact that I probably only got about 4 hours of sleep. I look up to see Storm come out of the bathroom. "Well man, what do you think?" he says.
"You up for Geronimo?" I ask, since yesterday he had been on Epinephrine all day. "Yeah dude, lets do it."
Today is Thursday, and it is our last day in Vegas. We have a plane to catch at 7:00pm, so we have decided that we must be back at the car by 5:00pm. Cara (the angel) drives us over to camp, where we break down the tent and pack up all of our gear. Then we drive off to the pullout for our hike in. All too soon I'm huffing and puffing down the trail that we have come to know so well during our time here. Storm and I race down the "well known" trail, and amazingly enough we don't get too lost. About 45 minutes later as I'm looking for where we are supposed to be going Storm says, "Let's get a move on, there is another party coming up." With that said we hightail it to the base of the climb. Alas we are too late; there are two ladies already on the first pitch. Whatever, we made it to the climb, and it took less that 4 hours, that was an accomplishment. Soon enough the party ahead of us is off the first pitch, and I'm saying, "Climb on." Storm shoots up the first pitch and then it's my turn. I get on and the climbing is awesome. The holds don't feel like they are breaking off in my hands, and the sun is out. I run up the first pitch to see that the party ahead of us isn't on the second pitch, but rather they are eating a snack.
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"They're going to let us climb though," explains Storm. Cool. That was very nice of them. Storm starts up the second pitch and I ask the ladies where they were from. Shocked that someone as good looking as I would talk to them the ladies take a minute to reply (well, not exactly but you know what Alex says about TRs). Before I know it Storm is calling on belay and I'm climbing. The second pitch is pretty easy, and my mind starts to drift to the 3rd pitch, which I will be leading. It will be my 3rd trad lead, and on the 3rd pitch, quite a coincidence. I get up and Storm says, "It's all you." I rack up and look up at the 30 or so feet that I'm going to lead. It's not that I'm scared, the pitch goes at 5.3, but we're already 2 pitches up into the air, and now I'm going to be on the sharp end. I start up, and the climbing isn't too hard. I start to enjoy myself; this is what I came here to do after all. I top out on this huge ledge and looking down feel like I have accomplished something. Storm follows me up; that's never happened before! He leads the next two pitches and suddenly we are standing at the top of Geronimo. "Well, we finally climbed it," says Storm. We chill out for about 20 minutes or so and then start the rap down. We had been warned that the rope gets stuck on this rap, but we had no idea what we were in for. After 3 hours of climbing and 3 hours of rapping, including Storm free soloing twice to get the rope unstuck we are finally down on the ground. Smiling we start the hike back to the car, and amazingly enough we don't get lost on the way back.
