Dangling with a View: Birthday Trip (Priest Draw, Groom Creek, Hinterlands) 2022

Saturday: 6/18/22 - Groom Creek and Priest Draw

I woke up the second day of the trip feeling a bit more refreshed. My fingers was still sore, so I relegated myself to the role of photographer. This means that this one will have lots of photos. The plan for today was to meet up with Kevin in Prescott, and then to link up with a large group of boulderers at Groom Creek.

Bouldering or crag party?

It's been a solid year since I last went to Groom. The timing was never right to go and work the projects, and I haven't felt much enthusiasm to go and repeat some of the climbs there. The boulders there are of the granite variety, and climbing them involves more of moving around features rather than holds. Secondly, the rock quality is quite good, but can be a bit crumbly.

The first stop for the day was the Dangling Woo Lee boulder, which is home to many easy problems, and a single moderate, which is the Dangling Woo Lee Bastard (V5) line. It is the extension of the Dangling Woo Lee (V3) boulder and includes a gnarly sideways hand toss to a slot where your body is completely rotated 90 degrees. It's quite the low probability move, but it is fun to mess about on it since it is low to the ground. I gave the Dangling Woo Lee Bastard an attempt at the day flash, and stuck the toss, but managed to chuff the swing around.

Photography wise, the Dangling Woo Lee Boulder is interesting to photograph, as you are able to get some top-down shots of people climbing. It was my first time taking shots at that angle, so here are a few of them.

Ari going all in

Derek bringing on the tryhard

Aaron dialed in

Afterwards, we went over to the Moonstone problem (V6). Moonstone is a very classy looking problem that consists of holds that are single-pad crimpy jugs slots, with dynamic moves in between them. The crux is to repeat an airy toss four times to holds that get increasingly worse as you get closer to the end. To better describe the movement, it's similar to how salmon swim up through the river when it comes to lay their eggs. The bears waiting to prey on the salmon is gravity waiting to pull you down as soon as you miss. Therefore, you will require a very aggressive and confident disposition to make it through. I managed to lap this a few times, including a personal speed record of 26-29 seconds.

Video Credits: Dom

Photography wise, the moonstone problem is very fun to shoot since you can get all 4 limbs of the climbers. Here's a few of my favorite shots:

Kevin getting started on the problem

Lilia core-ing up!

Carmen with the tiger eye

Amelia with the flexibility

Crossed up, dude!

Halo showing his guns

Noah being too cool for school

I also caught some shots of Donovan working Eclipse, which he put down in a single session. Eclipse is another classic problem that requires a wicked left heel hook at the start to some improbable looking grips. We also discussed a problem he FA'd at Cherry Canyon, called Juggernaut, so I would like to check that out when the roads open up again.

Donovan with the flow

Afterwards, we messed around on the Space Lord highball, and then ended the Groom Creek day at Bill's grill. A solid afternoon.

That night, I returned back to the draw with Kevin for a midnight Mars Roof session. It's been a while since I've returned back to Mars roof, so while I worked on familiarizing myself with the sections of Receptionist (V10) again, Kevin got his first taste of some Mars Roof grips.