First Rock Climbing Experiences at Smith Rock State Park

First, let me tell you something about our newly discovered love for pumpkin spice. At our AirBnB in Portland, there were some leftover cookies from the travellers before. Well, as we already saw a lot of pumpkin spice-flavored things in the supermarket, we gave it a try. Indeed, they were yummy. So, we bought a pumpkin spice pudding cake the next day. It was so delicious! This was the beginning of an ongoing love story. Seriously, since then our mouths are always watering when we see something with pumpkin spice.

However, the journey to Smith Rock State Park was scenic and also something new for us. Soon after Portland, we found ourselves in a dry desert, where you could look for miles in every direction because it’s so flat. This makes the high rock cliffs of Smith Rock even more outstanding. Our first glances at them made us badly fancy to climb them. The Bivouac Camp basically right next to the cliffs was pretty empty during the week, so we got a nice shady campsite. Setting up the tent, we felt like sweating out of every pore. That was the only downfall of being in the desert – the heat and the burning sun! So, we always had to search some shady areas to climb, but that wasn’t a problem. In the afternoon we did some fun sport climbing routes at Phoenix Buttress to get to know the area. The rock was so good! It’s called Smith Rock tuff, consisting of old ashes and pumice from volcanic eruptions which hardened into a conglomerate-like rock. It’s so sharp-edged, we knew our fingertips would suffer a lot… We climbed until sunset and enjoyed the last route at Morning Glory Wall, leading along big, juggy holes you can already see from far away.

The next day, we woke up early to do 2 classics at Smith Rock. First, we climbed Wherever I May Roam which is a super cool sport-bolted multi-pitch. It goes up a beautiful face all the way, with great exposure. From the top, we had an amazing view of the rock towers standing between the Crooked River. After two short sport routes and a good lunch break to wait for the heat to cool down again, we did the other classic Super Slab. It was fun to do some trad climbing, and especially the last pitch was worth it, because it’s leading up a nice, long slab and dihedral. We could also admire a few Golden Eagles majestically gliding above our heads that day.

On August 28th, we attempted the most prominent tower at Smith Rock, but you can read about this adventure in the next entry. Stay tuned!

The following day was our last day at Smith Rock, so we planned to only climb the best rated routes. Spiderman not only has a cool name but is also a cool trad crack route we enjoyed. We did some sport routes at Mesa Verde Wall, where you climb up on plenty of tiny to golf ball-sized knobs sticking out of the conglomerate. So much fun! Because of the exhausting last days, some lack of sleep and the heat, we called it a day in the afternoon. On our way back, we spotted 4 river otters playing in the Crooked River. Very cute!