This small city of about 55,000 residents, home to the usual Southwest ethnic blend and roughly 20K Northern Arizona University students, is nestled in the geothermal war zone of the San Francisco volcanic field, a mere 60 miles from the Grand Canyon in a beeline. The region includes more than 600 volcanoes, which have disgorged a veritable bonanza of basalt and the granite-like dacite. Underneath all the volcanic rock prevail its sedimentary cousins, Kaibab limestone and Coconino sandstone. With such a rock smorgasbord, it follows that the climbing must vary, too. Angles range from Flagstaff’s flagship — the horizontal limestone roofs of Priest Draw — to the slabby-to-overhanging sandstone cliffbands, vertical, granite-like eggs, chunky basalt, and gently-past-vertical limestone in other areas. Flag houses scores of rock, all secret or semi-secret, but we won’t have time to see everything.
We meet in Colorado Springs and drive Climbing’s obnoxious company vehicle, the “Spray,” south and west. (This air-brushed, poseur wagon can barely drive 20 miles, much less the 2,500 we’re planning. Unfortunately, it’s the only car big enough for us and our five crashpads.)
Jody’s the odd woman out. A sarcastic chemistry major at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Jody had recently made the second female ascent of Bush Pilot (V11), in Rocky Mountain National Park, her third V11 of that summer. Eric Scully and Nelson — both Rifle “locals” who remind me more of skateboarders than climbers for their flippant attitudes — join us. Scully climbed 5.14 at 13 years old, and he still crushes (10 years later); Nelson serves as comic relief, but his moves are strong.
We have local resources during the trip, thankfully — three nice locals: my friend Jeremiah; his wife, Jenn; and their 2-year-old harlequin Great Dane, Abe, who tries to fit my face into his mouth by way of introduction. We’re crashing at their place. They (and a couple of their friends) will help us navigate Flagstaff’s back roads, raining down helpful Beta (and, afterward, likely fielding the fallout from our visit). Heck, even after Nelson boots a partially digested Arby’s roast beef sandwich into Jeremiah’s toilet our first night in town, they don’t throw us out. Later that evening, Jeremiah tells us all about epic limestone swells and roofs in a shallow canyon just down the highway, called Priest Draw. As we’ll learn, the problems at Priest Draw are quality, but the area is micro. There’s essentially one style: “thug roof.” And there’s a limited number of roofs on which to thug.

So, why, in 1999, did Chris Sharma and Josh Lowell come all the way to the Draw just to boulder (and film a segment of Rampage)? Well, to be honest, Lowell’s version of the Draw speaks of his ability to run a camera and edit, because while on video it looks like a destination, you’d be hard pressed to spend a month here. It’s pretty limited in style and scope. The Draw, much like the Bahamas and Great Barrier Reef, was once part of a warm, shallow sea undercut by a stream channel, dissolving the 250-million-year-old Kaibab limestone outcroppings into climbable roofs, some as deep as 20 feet. If you have strong tendons and like big, spanner moves (most problems worth doing here are V7 and up), then the Draw’s your dropzone. Otherwise, skip it. We spend our time playing on two V8s, Wifebeater and Carnivore, and the gentler-but-wiley Anorexic (V6). All classic problems and favorites in the area.