Day One
My alarm went off at 4:20am. I had two flights and a three hour car drive ahead of me. I had booked a shared car service to the airport & luckily at this hour, I was the only passenger. Our long day of travel went without incident & we stopped at a Whole Foods on our way to the house rental to grab some necessities. For me, this meant a bottle of Pinot Noir. The highlight of my day was sitting on the back deck of the house enjoying the sunset over the high desert with the flames of the gas fireplace dancing while I enjoyed my glass of wine.
Day Two
The forecast was rain. All day. It was a little deflating as I had been psyching myself up for all of the climbs that I wanted to do, but it actually worked out well. We woke up a little tired from our long day of travel & I made us a nice breakfast of eggs, potatoes & fruit. We took our time getting ready & then headed to the nearby city of Bend. We walked around in our rain jackets just taking in the city and shopping at the little boutiques that lined the main streets. We also walked through a famer's market, which was so colorful and cheery. I couldn't help taking pictures of the veggies & flowers! We ended the day with a pasta dinner that I cooked at the house while we planned a hiking day.
Day Three
We started the morning with homemade buttermilk cinnamon pancakes and a fresh fruit salad. Most. Delicious. Pancakes. Ever. Of course, I had to take a picture. The forecast for the day had a significant chance of rain, so we decided to head to Smith Rock to hike the Misery Ridge Trail. In talking with some locals the day before, everyone we spoke with recommended this trail. I'm so glad that we did it. Smith Rock is an amazing place and you definitely get a different perspective of the landscape from this trail.
Day Four
First climb day! Woo hoo! After having walked all around the park the day before, we knew exactly where we wanted to go. One of the most popular climbs in the park is called Five Gallon Buckets (5.8), so we headed there first to get our turn on this classic. As much as I wanted to jump right on lead, I decided to TR this one. I had been training on lead at the gym for several weeks before the trip and had worked myself up to some 5.9's in the gym, but we were both unsure of the grading at Smith Rock & I didn't want to freak myself out on my first climb.
Next, we moved on to the Dihedrals area and I onsited a couple of mellow climbs: Night Flight (5.5) and Easy Reader (5.6). The start to Easy Reader was super bouldery and on the crux move before the first clip (Deb thought this move was 5.8ish & we weren't able to stick clip it) I let out what I thought was a grunt on the crux, but Deb thought it was more like a whimper. Haha... if it was a whimper, it was a bad ass whimper! It was a fun first day & the sun was strong. We ended up a little tired by the end of this third climb, so we decided to call it a day. We headed back to the house & cooked up a massive stir-fry dinner.
Day Five
More rock climbing? Yes, please! We decided to head to the Monument Base Area to check out some fun, juggy routes we had heard about there. This area was not part of the Misery Ridge Trail, so we had not explored it yet. As we were walking down the trail, a climber with his harness still on came running towards and then past us. I could sense the urgency in his step & thought it was a little weird, but he didn't say anything and we just moved on. When we arrived at the base of the climbing area, we realized what was going on. A climber had taken a serious lead fall where he had not only experienced a ground fall, but a boulder had come loose off of the wall and hit him in the head on his way down. The rest of the climbing parties that were there cleared out, but Deb and I decided to stay. Sandstone can be fragile after rain & if pulled on too forcefully, like with all of the weight of a 225 pound male, why yes... it will break. Apparently this was the victim's first time lead climbing outside. As we found out later, he was lucky to get away with just a broken leg. He was carried off in a basket attached to a mountain bike wheel, complete with it's own braking system. At first, I was hesitant to take a picture, but the victim was insisting that his friends document the event with photos and video, so I decided to snap a couple pics as he was being carried out. We offered to help retrieve the gear left on the wall by the victim and the rest of his climbing party, but two guys in their party managed to get it down.Needless to say, my helmet did not come off of my head while we proceeded to climb at this wall. I managed to onsite a 5.7 called Bagpiping in the Buff, lead a 5.9 called Approaching the Twilight & then TR'd a 5.8 called Snow Bunny. It was quite an exciting day! We decided to end the day a bit early, grab some ice cream cones, head back to the house to shower and change & then went out for dinner at the Terrebonne Depot. It's close to Smith Rock and a popular hangout for climbers. We actually saw a few climbing parties there which we had talked to that day.
Day Six
We woke up to a family of deer roaming through the backyard of our house rental! It was so cool, they came right up to the back deck & appeared to be begging for food. I refused to feed them and they eventually got bored and moved on. We had planned to climb a five-pitch moderate sport route called First Kiss (5.7), however with only one 60M rope, we needed to buy either a second rope or a tag line in order to rappel down from the 5th pitch. The scramble off of the top of this climb seemed too sketchy to attempt without good beta. Neither one of us needed a new rope, so Deb decided to buy a 60M tag line. Ugh, tag lines... Just don't do it. We should have known what we were in for when the thing became a snarled mess in the store as the clerk was measuring it out.We actually had to drive down to Bend, OR to buy the tag line, so we decided to just hike for the rest of the day & attempt First Kiss the following morning. Deb had her heart set on summiting Tumalo Mountain & I wanted to see Tumalo Falls, so we did both. We started at the Falls, which was cool, but way too touristy. Then, we drove about 30 minutes to the base of the mountain. I'm so glad that we did the mountain. The views were amazing and the volcanic rock that covered the summit was something that I had never seen before. It was pretty cold and windy at the summit. No snow on the ground there, but the surrounding mountains had white caps from the weather system that had brought rain to Terrebonne earlier in the week.
Day Seven
Multi-pitch day! Oh yeah! We geared up and hiked in to the base of our climb. The plan was for me to take the first (5.7) and third (5.5) pitches. Since I was taking the first pitch, Deb wanted a 5.7 pitch as well, so she took the second (5.6), fourth (5.5) and fifth (5.7) pitches. This was my first multi-pitch climb where I legitimately exchanged leads with my partner. I think it was about 10am by the time we arrived at the base of the climb and geared up. I was super nervous, but really excited and ready for the challenge.
The first pitch was smooth until I got to this awkward ledge where I had to clip to the left of a bulge. From there, I could either make a sketchy high step move off the ledge with poor hands, or I could traverse my way right around the bulge (I actually chose to scoot under it) to continue up on a pocketed face. I tried to gather myself a couple of times to make the sketchy high step, but just couldn't do it. I was happy to belay Deb up over that section and have her confirm the sketchiness of it as well. She also decided to traverse right on top rope.
My second lead was the third pitch of this route. In all of the beta that I gathered on this climb, this was by far the worst pitch. It was a super long traverse with massive rope drag and a sketchy start. There should have been a bolt on the sketchy start, but I think it fell out. So, I traversed off of a ledge onto a blocky section of wall with sloping holds where you could see straight down and then onto another ledge where I made my first clip. This ended up being one of my favorite pictures as you can see the long length of rope hanging in between me and Deb as we stood on our separate ledges. We could not hear each other for most of this pitch as I was leading us around a massive pillar of rock. I basically had to yank out enough rope for me to make each of my moves so as not to be pulled off of the rock.
We completed the first three pitches without incident, but then the weather started to change. I had brought my windbreaker with me, but gave it to Deb just before she started belaying me on the third pitch. As she began her lead on the fourth pitch, I let her keep my windbreaker on & immediately regretted it as it started to rain and the wind started kicking up as she was making her second clip. My teeth began chattering and I tried to hug into the rock as closely as I could to get out of the wind and rain. This belay seemed to last FOREVER. I don't blame her for taking her time to complete it, as I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to be the leader at that point. I followed that pitch as quickly as I could not only to warm up, but to try to speed up our climb as the weather seemed to be getting worse by the minute.
We discussed our options at the beginning of the fifth pitch & somehow decided to just go for it. This was Deb's 5.7 pitch and I don't think she wanted to give it up, even in the rain. I let her keep the windbreaker on & suffered through another miserable belay. My hands were so cold that I could barely feel my fingertips as I followed her on this pitch. We briefly celebrated our successful ascent and then began assembling our tag line rappel. This took way too long. The belay ledge at the top was small & uncomfortable. My fingers were frozen. And of course our tag line didn't uncoil neatly and we had to sort through a tangled mess of knotted rope as the rain and wind picked up and the sun began to set. Not my favorite climbing moment. Tag lines: Just say no.
After finally sorting all the rope out, Deb rappelled down first. I rappelled down second. And then, we tried to pull our rope using the tag line. Nothing. Pulled Harder. Nothing. Yanked the fucker as hard as we could. Nothing. I was not amused. The sun was setting and the wind and rain were not letting up. We still had a long hike back out of the park, so I decided that we should just bail off of the side of the climb and leave our gear. This was the first time that I've ever bailed on a climb and left gear overnight, which didn't feel great, but felt better than any other option. We put on our headlamps, scrambled down the side of the cliff onto a trail, retrieved our packs from the base of the climb and headed back to the car in the dark. What a day.
Day Eight (a.k.a. Operation Rescue 'Sven' Day)
We had other climbs in mind for our last day at Smith Rock, but due to the circumstances from Day Seven, we had to go back to First Kiss and rescue our gear instead. We had been using my rope, which I had named Sven when I bought him earlier this year for my Red River Gorge trip & I was not about to let Sven go. We stopped at the local climb shop on our way to Smith in the morning & I decided to buy a green 70M 10.2MM. I really wanted a lighter 70M, but they didn't have one. I decided that I would use it to rescue Sven and then have it cut in half to use as a gym rope & try to sell the second half. I decided at the store that her name would be Svetlana. New ropes are so pretty, so of course I had to pose for a picture with her! (Yes, the staff at the climb shop thought I was legit CRAZY).
However, I did learn something new. Most ropes come factory coiled, which you need to uncoil in a certain way to avoid kinks and curls later on. My salesman volunteered to help me uncoil my rope and then recoiled it for me, after we marked the center with a piece of tape. Operation rescue Sven was a success, and we later returned to the climb shop to have Svetlana cut into two: Svet & Lana. I'm still looking for a home for Svet... :(
Day Nine
Another long travel day, but I was ready to head back home after all of the adventures that I had on this trip! We woke up around 7am, had a nice breakfast & then set off for the 3-hour ride to the airport around 8am. With plenty of time to spare, it was a relaxing ride & a beautiful day. Oregon is such a gem! I can't wait to go back out there again and share it with some of my friends.
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