2008 November 15 - Smith Rock Road Trip (Real!)

The Central Oregon high desert never has more than three rainy weekends in the fall each year. This year they soaked our plans for a road trip three times in a row. Finally, family, work and weather schedules coincided for a magnificent three day weekend at Smith Rock. We hit the road "after work" on Friday and spent Saturday through Monday climbing in fantastic weather. The place was mobbed but generally friendly on the Saturday and Sunday and blissfully peaceful on Monday. Here's the detailed itinerary, courtesy of Mike:

Friday:

Left at 3:45 pm, just in time for all the traffic

Saturday:

• McDonald's (Dan's Egg McMuffins missing the eggs)
• The Dihedrals
  • Lichen It *** 5.7, bolted: Dan led; Bill, Mike top-roped
  • Easy Rider *** 5.6, bolted: Bill led; Dan, Mike top-roped
  • Night Flight *** 5.5, bolted: Bill led
  • Left Side Crack * 5.4, gear: Dan led; Mike led; Bill led
  • Right Side Crack ** 5.5, gear: Mike led; Dan, Bill top-roped
• Mexican food, with a nice garden… (and beer

Sunday:

• McDonald's (Dan's biscuits burned)
• The Dihedrals
  • Cinnamon Slab **** 1st pitch: 5.6, gear: Bill led; Dan, Mike followed (after Bill talked us out of the big cams and hexes)
  • 2nd pitch: 5.5, gear: Dan led (without the big cams or hexes…); Bill, Mike followed Bill and Mike took pictures (and Bill wandered off…) 2 rappels
  • Bunny Face **** (1st pitch only) 5.7, bolted: Dan led; Mike, Bill top-roped
  • Rabbit Stew *** 5.7, gear: Mike mock-led (and spewed blood); Dan, Bill top-roped
  • Lycopodophyta *** 5.7, gear: Dan, Mike, Bill top-roped
• Mountains of chinese food: Bill and Mike summited, Dan only did the 1st pitch

Monday:

• Shari's (we screwed up, Dan's breakfast looked fine)
• Zion Area
  • 5 Gallon Buckets **** 5.8, bolted: 1st bolt - Mike stole a 10' stick clip, for the 20' high 1st bolt - Dan climbed up 6' to use the stick clip… - Mike returned the stick clip… 2nd thru Nth bolts - Dan did them on lead Bill top-roped (he's such a "poser") Mike top-roped Bill top-roped (again; he's such a climb hog…)
  • Lion's Jaw *** 5.8, gear/corner climb: (our new friends hung the rope while they were up there) Mike, Dan, Bill top-roped
• The Dihedrals (again)
  • Bunny Face **** 1st pitch: 5.7, bolted: Bill led; Dan, Mike followed
  • 2nd pitch: 5.6-5.7, bolted: Dan led (with cam for traverse); Bill, Mike followed; 2 rappels
  • Ancylostoma ** (translated: hookworm) 5.9, bolted: Dan top-roped, Mike thrashed, and then went on to…
  • Bookworm **** 5.7, gear: Mike stopped thrashing, and grunted up on fist-jams, on top-rope; Bill danced up on hand- and fist-jams, on top-rope
• Took the virtual tour of Monkey Face
• Departed right on schedule (5:00 pm)
• Pizza and pasta at that red-neck place (Paolo's)
• Made it home around midnight Monday

Tuesday:

Slept at work all day...

We spent the drive home listing to the classics on the FM and arguing over the greatest song of all time (since there were three of us in the van it had to be a three way tie: China Grove, the Doobie Brothers; Breakdown, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; Born to Be Wild, Steppenwolf).

Check out our album on Picasa here: http://picasaweb.google.com/trueguides/SmithRock# It's mostly my photos from the trip, but there's a few from Mike's collection to document the routes I didn't capture - got to remember the extra camera battery next time! Leave a comment or drop me a note if you want to find out how to see the all the photos.

2008 November 1 - Smith Rock Road Trip (NOT!)

Big plans for the weekend - we were all going to skip a day of work for a three day road trip to Smith Rock. By the time Friday came around though the forecast for central Oregon wasn’t looking good, and we couldn’t face that much driving with such a slim chance of decent weather. But nobody wanted to go back to work just because a little rain storm was covering the five western states, so we made a climbing road trip of sorts anyway: Friday we hopped the ferry and went to Bremerton to check out a different Vertical World gym and Saturday we popped over to the Feathers to catch a few hours on the crags between rain squalls.

The gym was pretty cool, as far as gyms go – it’s a purpose built facility so it’s taller and outfitted with a higher density and greater variety of routes than the Seattle and Redmond gyms. We would recommend it any time you find yourself on the wrong side of Puget Sound on a rainy day.




We didn’t have too much time at Vantage, but we did accomplish one major group goal – we made Karen do her first outdoor sport lead climb. Now that we have a new rope gun, the rest of us can slack off and let her put up all the hard routes!

Check out the rest of the photos on my Picasa album
here.


And yes, this blog will get around to skiing eventually – all we need is snow!