Smith Rock « a journey to Index

Ok, enough is enough. Yesterday we got to park early and both Kristine and I got into our groove. We started with a fairly easy but interesting crack climb, which was long and required our entire 70M rope to rappel down to the bottom. I then jumped on my first 5.10 at Smith Rock, which was a beautiful climb, albeit short. It was just a bit overhung with dynamic moves and a two-finger pocket at the top to a sloper finish to clip the chains (climbers reading this know what i’m talking about…). Kristine was so amped that she wanted to try the climb as well. She did amazing well but didn’t make it to the top. The irony the entire morning was that every time I was climbing the sun was shining on me and when Kristine began climbing the sun would disappear behind storm clouds of death. This was the case on the 5.10 climb. I felt the sun on my back while clipping the anchors at the top of the climb. Clouds moved in when Kristine got on the climb and torrential rain showered down as soon as she was back on the ground from trying the climb. We piled our gear in our packs and hurried back to the van. The pictures doesn’t demonstrate just how wet we really were, but regardless this is us after getting back to the van.

We then woke up this morning to 25 degree weather. It was cold but we wanted nothing other than a great day climbing, so after german pancakes with some special Hull applesauce and plenty of maple syrup and butter, we suited up and headed for the climbs. This morning we wanted to try a different area that neither of us had been to before, it was the columnar basalt of the Lower Gorge, which has renown crack climbs that are much different from the tuff rock that makes up most of the rock that Smith Rock is known for. We were still freezing before even getting to the climbs, we couldn’t even imagine taking off our gloves to climbing, so we settled for a hike up to the top of Smith Rock. The hike was beautiful. It was only around a 3.5 mile hike, but we ascended over 2,000 feet to the top and got some great pictures of the park:

Monkey face, which is a 300 foot pillar that ironically looks like a monkey’s face (although not from this angle). It actually looks like rock from another planet and just looking at it was intimidating:

A view of the valley below. This is the heart of Terrebonne, OR. It’s beautiful. With this landscape and cute llamas if it weren’t for the cold weather Kristine would probably never leave.

Back at the van we ate a late lunch and as the sun had just about convinced us that the afternoon was going to be perfect for climbing, we had to run for cover from pellet sized hail. “Are you kidding me!!!!” , I screamed, and Kristine knowingly, simply looked at me and said three words, “We’re heading South.” Simple, direct, and straight from the boss. Now it’s just a a matter of choosing between all the sunny and amazing climbing heavens in California and Southern Utah and Southern Nevada.

Our first day at Smith Rock was Beautiful. I’d almost say it was magical. Blue skies and perfect weather greeted our descent into the Park.

We had the gumption to climb. The night before we had driven into the night through Portland and spent the night at a rest area at the top of Mt. Hood. We completed the drive to Smith Rock in the morning.
In the Park, Kristine was taking pictures of ladybugs, going goo goo over purple rocks, the geology of the park, the fact that the rock there is called ‘tuff’, and that it’s purple from iron that’s oxidized. We had to rally from sitting, which looks something like this:

To actually finding a route to climb, which looks more like this:

Aha! We found it. A three star 5.7 called Spiderman Buttress. It was a two pitch climb of which only did the first pitch. Here’s a glimpse from the top looking down: