Ramblings of a Monkeygirl I laughed, I cried, I fell down…

Oregon Fourth of July Weekend, 2009

Smith Rock State Park. July 3, 2009.

I had been warned that Smith Rock in midsummer was blazing hot so, on the drive up to Oregon, I kept thinking I’d have to bust out some lawyerly and persuasive argument to convince Jeff and Kelli to wake up disgustingly early.  To my surprise and delight, one of the first things Jeff said to me upon reaching the cabin was that he was hoping to get to the park by 6am.  A cheer and a shout of assent from me, and we were set for a 5am departure time.

The next morning, however, our trio of climbers was down to just Jeff and I due to Kelli’s late night session with a wine bottle, some Scotch, and friends.  Though not climbing, my husband, awesome guy that he is, was perfectly happy to leave early with us to hike around.  Despite the park’s reputation as a sport climber’s paradise, Jeff and I were mainly interested in doing trad (although I did have my eye on a couple hard sport routes) so we chose Lycopodophyta on The Dihedrals to start.  It takes a little longer for me to warm up than Jeff so I was happy to let him lead the first pitch.  I lead the crack up the second pitch but hopped out when it turned grungy and plant-infested and finished the climb on the bolted top section of Bunny Face.  After we rapped down, we goofed around on the lower section of Bunny Face for a little while on top rope.

Right about that time, we started noticing the heat of the day cranking up - The Dihedrals are on a south-facing wall, and the sun had finally caught up to us.  By the time we got our gear packed up to move, the beautiful, cool morning had turned oven-hot.  I had heard many good things about the shadier Lower Gorge from my climbing buddies via Twitter (and I wanted to try a sport route called Pure Palm) so we trekked back out of the river gorge to find the way down to the other side.  Now, mind you, I’d just done a marathon the weekend before this so hiking back uphill with my pack and full trad rack was less than pleasant for my quads and calves, especially in that heat.

When we got to the top, I was feeling pretty wiped out.  Then, no doubt because I wanted so badly to check out the Lower Gorge, we couldn’t find the way down.  We wandered around on edges of the cliff top for a while until Jeff found a climbing school guide to ask what routes were nearby out of the sun.  The guide sent us in the direction of Northern Point, and we were happy to just set up anywhere in the shade, even on these shorter walls.  Jeff and I were feeling pretty draggy at this point, but I remembered that I had some caffeinated energy gels (i.e., Gu and Cliff Shots) so I passed one to him and quickly downed one myself.  The caffeine plus the cool shade worked their magic, and my mood, which had gone a little crabby in the wilting heat, flipped right around.

Now the main cliffs where we were earlier in the day are composed of volcanic welded tuff or, in other words, sharp, pointy rock with plenty of bite for your fingers and shoe rubber.  Northern Point, however, is part of the band of smoother, dark basalt rock that lines part of the river gorge, and I loved the feel of it.  Just rough enough for good friction but not enough to cut into your hands like the welded tuff; sweet and cool to the touch. (Yes, I am a climbing dork and love to feel the rock.)  Jeff and I took turns leading Double Time - a very fun single pitch 5.7 climb (Jeff made up a variation at the top).  After Double Time we were both too hot and dehydrated to climb anymore in hottest part of the day so we packed up and went back to the cabin.

Meadow Camp. July 4, 2009.

The next day we opted to hit a local crag called Meadow Camp near the Deschutes River in Bend instead of dealing with the heat up at Smith (which conveniently gave Jeff and Kelli some time to sleep off our drunken Friday night. heh. I never seem to sleep enough and woke up at 8:30).  We had no topos for the climbs and it was fun to scout out the rock to decide what we wanted to climb.  We found a spot that looked like you could do a 5.7 to warm up as well as some harder face climbing so Jeff set up both the ropes as top ropes.  I honestly wasn't expecting a whole lot but ended up having a total blast on those vertical faces, even trying a ridiculous, swinging dyno move that required me to flatten myself with my face to against the wall in order to barely reach the hold I was aiming for.  Needless to say, I didn't stick it, but I didn't care because I was having so much fun. =)

Reflections

Ok, I'll be honest.  I've been dragging my ass about posting this trip report.  At first I thought I was reluctant to post because I didn't have any pictures to go along with the report, but I eventually realized that I was hesitant to post this TR because of what other climbers would think about climbing such easy trad routes. I hate admitting that but it's true.  Now that I've entered the universe of climbers on Twitter, I find I sometimes get intimidated by the routes some of them climb.  I'm sure it didn't help that I was reading about @lizzy_t 's trip to Smith Rock and her send list on her blog, Dream In Vertical, and I know some of it was just disappointment about not getting down to the Lower Gorge.  Still, sometimes I can't help but feel I'm a pretty wusstastic trad climber. Before you say anything, I KNOW - IT IS DUMB! I've given myself a mental slap in the face and a bit of a stern lecture about how the ratings don't matter at all.  I even chatted with @rockgrrl about it a little via email.  The thing is, I had a FANTASTIC time both in Smith Rock park and at Meadow Camp hanging out with my friends and just playing on the rocks.  I have no idea why I wouldn't want to share that with people - damn the route ratings!  Anyway, hopefully there'll be no more silliness like that from here on out. I will also try not to spray too much about different ratings in the future.

Also, I'll try to actually take pictures for my blog posts =p