Birthday Trip (Priest Draw, Groom Creek, Flagstaff Hinterlands) 2022 - Day 1

I made a promise to myself that when I did this blog, it was going to be once a week. And now, it's been at least two weeks since I've written anything. So it's overdue, but here's a trip report. But first, a cool picture of me climbing on my birthday:

Working the Receptionist for a birthday trip

Thanks Kevin!

It's been a solid week since I got back from my 26th birthday trip from the 17th to 20th. Initially the planning was a bit haphazard, since Northern AZ has seen a spree of forest fires due to man-made causes (burning toilet paper). It may be a bit morbid to say, but I know a few people who would bash in that guy's kneecaps for doing so. Anyways, for the week going up to it, I was scoping out the weather daily, as well as whether the forest roads would even be open. Here's a link to the Coconino national forest service roads to see what's currently open, and what isn't. 

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/coconino/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5339811

Anyways, I was primarily concerned with the following forest roads: FR 132, FR 235, FR 231. Fortunately, they were all open during my trip, so that means the roofs are open and ready for business. Additionally, unlike the weather forecast predicted, there wasn't any rain, and there was a surprising lack of bugs. This was how my trip broke down. 

Friday: 6/17/22 - Priest Draw 

There wasn't much going on this day at first. It was quite hot during the day time so I floundered around the draw solo. I started off at the Bat Cave. My fingers were also hurting that morning, so it was a little disheartening falling off the Bat Cave. I tried to do it forward and backward, and wasn't able to get it down until two hours into my session. I then went to try Saltine Crackwhore (V8-10) on the Saucer Roof. It's an interesting climb! There's two memorable things about this one:

1. The first move is god awful hard. Maybe it was due to the humidity, but for the life of me, I could not stick the toss to the greasy slopey pinch. 
2. Near the end of the climb, there is a cool straight-arm gaston with a pseudo hand-foot match that leads to several right arm bumps and a foot-first finish on good holds.

I managed to do all the moves except for the first one, so I'm looking forward to going back to it. I then called it quits on that session and went to set up my hammock, and rest for an evening session with Evan in hopes that it would go better. 

Fortunately, the second session went much better. Evan was still at work, so I did some solo laps on my old projects. I managed to recapture footage of Twister (again) in good style, as well as several laps on Anorexic Sacrifice. The videos are shown below:

Twister (Better Style)

Anorexic Sacrifice

Afterwards, my finger was starting to hurt, so I called it quits on climbing and picked up the role of being a photographer for Evan, who's working on Anorexic Sacrifice (V6). It was my first time legitimately picking up the role of photographer, so it was exciting to learn what worked for some photos, and what didn't. I'll upload a few here!

Afterwards, we parted ways after I used his shower at his place and introduced myself to Rudy, his dog that he adopted from the shelter- and then went to hammock in the woods. Before I went to sleep, I took a couple more long exposure shots of the stars. Flagstaff is a dark sky city, so the pictures were amazing. 

A pretty good first day!

here's the breakdown of climbs done, and V-points associated with them:

Bat Cave (V3) - 2 V-points

Bat Cave Reversed (V3) - 2 V-points

Fin (V1-2) - 1 V-point

Horn to the Fin Exit (V?) - 2 V-points

Saltine Crackwhore (V8-10) - 1 V-point for trying and getting most of the moves except for 1

Twister x2 (V6) - 12 V-points (6 V-points each)

Anorexic Sacrifice x2 (V6) - 6 V-points (3 V-points each)

Total: 26 V-points