This is a long one so if your strapped for time, wait for another day.
For the second half of my spring break Taryn and I were coaxed down to Smith Rocks in Oregon by Lotte and Jeremy (friends of mine who used to live in Olympia who moved down to Portland). Thursday morning Taryn and I hit the road around 7:00 am and started driving south on I-5, the weather was cool and clear with hope for clear skies. I drove and Taryn slept, which is typical of any car experience with her, heck she can barely make it through a movie with out falling asleep let alone a 4-5 hour drive. Luckily I have experience with sort of thing.
We took I-5 south to I-26, which took us through the Portland suburb of Gresham, OR. A gross town filled with check cashing offices, strip malls, Native owned casinos, and dilapidated residential homes sandwiched between fast food joints. We stopped at Albertsons for beer, wine, and ice, where the local homeless exchange there recyclables for change. After filling the cooler and emptying our bladders, we moved forth towards the pass at Mt. Hood, through Government Camp and the pitiful little ski resorts. The poor snow year has clearly taken it’s toll on these lower elevation slopes, as we approached 4000 feet there was barely a dusting of snow along the road. The lifts climbed to the summits of their respective peaks with no skiers, like a conveyer belt in a factory that hasn’t produced anything.
Once over the pass we quickly descended down to the flat lands that surround the area south of the mountain. If you blink too long you would have missed the transition from evergreen forest to sagebrush desert. There is a distinct dividing line between the two landscapes, almost like driving in a big museum; passing from the forest habitat exhibit to the desert habitat exhibit.
Once in the desert the road straightens and rolls out like the red carpet in front of you, punctuated by small towns and reservation lands, and one intermission of a short canyon created by the Deschutes river. The road is flanked by cow pastures that are filled with fat meat cows, doesn’t look like this is a moo cow sort of town.
I continually try to rouse my sleeping girlfriend who has managed to sleep through the most beautiful parts of the drive. It’s not that I want her to wake up so she’ll entertain me, but it seems like a poor time to have our eyes closed. But she’ll be happier well rested, so I shouldn’t pester too much.
After passing through some funky towns that appear to exist only because of an industry that has long left due to outsourcing or depletion of resources, we arrive in Terrebonne. Terrebonne is a small town adjacent to Smith Rocks State Park, we buy some tomatoes and ranch dressing to moisten our tuna sandwiches that we make on the tailgate of the truck in the windy parking lot of the local Thriftway. Taryn comes out of the store to report on the local grandmother who is buying her grandkids Redbull and Monster energy drinks. It’s like a nightmare; 5 screaming kids with Redbull coursing through their veins, no wonder diabetes is on the rise.
"This road doesn't exist"
After some wrong turns we find the poorly marked state park, one would expect the climbing Mecca of Oregon to have a sign bigger that a postage stamp advertising it.
The park is a geologic anomaly in the middle of all the flatness, rising up out of the ground is the monolithic glory of Smith Rocks. Smith towers over the landscape at 3,360 feet, and is covered in climbing routes and walking paths for all the tourists to circumnavigate the cliff, and for the climbers to access the routes.
I park the car, and text Lotte to find out where they are; still in Portland. Apparently Jeremy has been enjoying his birthday morning quite a bit. So Taryn and I don wind breakers and take a walk down to the base of the cliffs, clambering and exploring the area. Taryn wants to explore every cave she sees, she tries to shimmy through a narrow slot and gets a fair amount of sand and grit down the back of her pants. As she excavates her underpants I watch out for onlookers.
At about 4:00 pm we decide to find the Skull Hollow campground where we are to meet Lotte and Jeremy. On the map the road that we are currently driving on doesn’t exist, but that’s ok because we found our way there anyway. After setting up the tent we lay down for a minute to relax and then I hear a car coming, my spidey senses tell me that it’s Lotte and Jeremy. Lotte (short for Charlotte by the way) didn’t tell Jeremy that we were going to be there because she wanted to surprise him for his birthday, and as I climb out of the tent I see Lotte collecting firewood from an empty campsite. I start walking toward the car, Lotte is holding some wood and improvising a story through the window of the car about “some guy who is pissed because this is their wood”, I approach the driver side window and look into the eyes of a bewildered Jeremy who was preparing himself for a confrontation with a stranger over firewood.
At first he had a look of concern that turned into glee as he realized that the angry individual was actually just me. He opens the door and we give each other a big hug and have a laugh about the yarn that Lotte had been spinning for the last 20 minutes in order to get him to drive to the camp ground instead of smith rocks.
By now it’s almost 6:00 pm and we start in on dinner and tapping the pony keg that Jeremy and Lotte brought. I have a feeling that this is going to be a party trip with some climbing. We joke and eat as we sit around the crackling fire pit, which is a savior on this windy and chilly evening. By 10:00 we are nicely buzzed, full, and tired so we hit the sack.
We climb into our tent which couldn’t be pointing in a worse direction, with the door facing directly into the wind which makes the tent into a wing that wants to take off into the night with Taryn and I curled up in the bottom. “We’re not in Kansas anymore” taryn jokes as we lie in the enormous family camper tent from L.L. Bean fit for the partridges‘.
In the night I awake to 20-25 MPH winds that shake and threaten to destroy our extremely aerodynamically disadvantaged tent. I climb out into the wind in my undies and begin to tighten all the anchor lines against the wind. Note to self: invest in a smaller tent.
The morning comes and I wake up to a windless morning that is filled with Jeremy’s rendition of “Winter Wonderland”. “You have got to be kidding me” Taryn (who hates snow) proclaims as she unzips the tent flap in order to determine what Jeremy could be talking about.
"This is crap"
We climb out of the tent into a land that is covered in a dusting of snow, that will eventually add up to more than an inch of snow. I get started on breakfast, bacon, eggs and toast, the bacon is more fat than bacon, and by the time it’s all cooked there is about an inch of bacon fat in the bottom of the skillet. Note to self: don’t buy bacon from Grocery Outlet, there is a reason it is being sold in the Big Lots of food.
As we drink our coffee and eat our bacon fat we try and determine a Plan B to climbing. Lotte and Jeremy have it figured out already; drive to Bend and go in the saltwater hot tubs. Couldn’t think of a better way to work out the chills of the night and morning. We climb into Jeremy’s car and drive south to the hip city of Bend. After about an hour of soaking we decide we’re hungry again, we find a noodle place and fill our bellies. By the time lunch is through it’s 1:00 pm and the sun is out, all the snow is gone, and the wind is back. So we drive back to Skull Hollow, grab our gear and go to the crag.
Not a bad end to the day
We make our way to a wall that will hopefully have routes that will feed all of our varying appetites. Jeremy and Lotte are the designated lead climbers, because I lack the confidence to get on the sharp end of the rope, and because they likes it. He gets a rope up a 5.9 that Taryn gives a go at but gets stuck in the crux because of her short stature. He then sets up a 5.10b climb, I belay him first and then am talked into climbing it. I’m a bit skeptical of my ability to finish the route because I haven’t been climbing much, and it’s not an easy first climb. But the route is my kind of climb, a slab route where it’s possible to stay on your feet. I try and take a rest but Lotte starts belittleing me in an attempt to get me to climb it sans rest. She was successful. I managed to climb it in one go, which was good for my confidence. “Thanks Lotte, I needed that” I tell her once back on the ground.
By now Whitey is has arrived from a day of skiing at Mt. Bachelor south of here. I urge him to climb a route so he can have a “multi sport” day. Skiing in the morning and climbing in the evening, not a bad use of your time.
Smith Rocks ridgeline
As the sun begins to go down and the crag gets cool we pack it up and start to head for camp. With the whole gang now present and some additions we make no hesitations to start making a dent in the pony keg. Some how a joke about certain things being “very European” gets started and runs through the end of the weekend. Everything is “very European”, capris, French presses, drinking PBR out of a cup, eating food with chopsticks, the fancy cooler. We sit around the fire and as Whitey put it, begin to “get faded”, a term that I am going to adopt for the future. It seems appropriate.
Whitey
In the morning we woke to another clear and windy morning, another bacon fat breakfast, and another very European joke. Because it was Saturday we wanted to get an early start to the climbing day. We got a good parking spot, geared up and hiked down the trail to the base of our first climb. We went to the Red Wall where there was a 5.9 crack that Jeremy set up a top rope on. Everyone had a go on it, Taryn was stopped at the crux again, the crack didn’t agree with her. I climbed the crack last and cleaned the gear and rappelled off, as I lowered the rope it kept getting hung up in the crack and gave me heaps of trouble. After I belayed Jeremy on a really poor climb, it started out easy, pockets and good holds that turned into a blank face with a bit of a lead out to the anchors. “That guy was right this route sucks”, we had been warned that it was a crappy route. After finally getting back to the ground we decided to move to the other side of Smith so we could stay in the sun. So we packed up started switchbacking our way up the trail to the pass and then down over the side. We picked our way down a steep scramble to the base of the Mesa Verde wall where we were able to climb by ourselves for the majority of the afternoon.
Jeremy
We leisurely spent the day belaying Jeremy up routes and climbing them once a top rope had been established. I sat and drank a sessions beer with my lunch, took pictures and observed a vicious dog fight. Well, I didn’t actually get to see it but I listened to the whole thing, apparently when they started fighting they became tangled in each others leashes and were tumbling down the steep slope latched on to each others necks, snarling and barking. Meanwhile Jeremy was in the middle of the crux of a tough 5.10c peering down from the wall and asking “what the hell is going on down there”? The owner was belaying and started freaking out a bit and had to lower her climber off the wall to attend to her baby.
Taryn finished her first route of the trip, a stout 5.9, after a couple of rests in the crux, and with some encouragement from Lotte she finished the route. She was able to find her groove and was pretty stoked about it.
Taryn killin' it
By now it was about four in the afternoon and this crag was getting crowded so we moved on to the spiderman wall, to climb a 5.8 crack that leads out to a face climb. It was a fun route, again Jeremy “rope gun” Epstein lead the pitch, I seconded, and Whitey cleaned the gear. As I climbed I got myself in a funny position and was straddling the corner of the rock, everyone started laughing, and as I looked down from my perch I saw the group making thrusting motions with their hips. I over exaggerated the motion and had a good laugh and then moved northward. As I got to the crux I started to feel it a bit, and asked for a “take”, again Lotte being the team captain told me to stop wining and finish the climb. I finished it with only one fall. Thanks Lotte.
getting awkward
After Whitey came down from the climb we packed up and started making our way to asterisk pass to make a shortcut back to the car. The climb was only fourth class scrambling but it was a bit exposed, and with a pack and a rope on it felt a bit sketchy. Nothing harder than some of the climbs I grew up with in front of the Eden rd. house, but it still managed to wear on my nerves, probably a little dehydration and hunger had something to do with that.
Once done with Asterisk pass, we hiked down to the path and to the car. Back at the car I dropped my bag and laid in the grass until I cooled down enough to put a jacket on. Back at camp we resumed our routine of “party trip with some climbing”. This night we were joined by a group of folks that Jeremy and Lotte know from Portland. We ate drank and got sufficiently “faded”, told more “very European” Jokes, threw a rotisserie chicken carcass in the fire, nearly melted our shoes on our nuclear fire, and talked about climbing.
In the morning we woke to a grey, windy morning that seemed to threaten to rain, snow or a combination of the two. So I manned the weather radio and got word of a winter weather warning, so we all agreed that getting an early start would be best for all of us for fear that the pass at Mt. Hood could be troublesome. Jeremy’s car battery had died the night before while we were jamming out to some music so I broke out the new jumper cables and hooked up the battery to my car. Two things happened when I did this; the check engine light turned on, and my fan was spinning slowly. Both initially gave me worry, but I discovered that they were of minimal concern, the check engine light was a $150.00 fix, and the fan is on a heat engaging clutch, I had never had my hood open when the car was cold so this was new to me. Both of these things motivated me to order myself a copy of the maintenance manual so I can be more knowledgeable of how to fix my own car.
The drive over the pass was uneventful, there was only rain and wind as I drove over the high divide with Taryn soundly sleeping in the passenger seat. The drive back to Olympia was much like the trip over Mt. Hood, rainy and grey. Not much was said during the trip just quiet contemplation as I listened to the radio and watched Portland come and go, and then the I-5 corridor guide us north back home. As I listened to a radio show called Savage Love - a love and sex advice show - I was moved to tears while listening to the story of a man recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs disease, who wanted advice on not dying single and alone. For some reason it has stuck with me all week, I think that prospect of being faced with your imminent death alone is terrifying.
But I digress. The trip was great, Taryn really enjoyed herself, and we had a lot of fun in a new place. It was just what she needed, a break from her reality, and it was a multi-sport vacation for me. It was also a great opportunity to see a different part of the Northwest, and old friends. It’s trips like this that reinforce to me that going to school out here was a good idea, and that I really do enjoy climbing even if it scares the crap out of me. The forecast for this weekend looks wet, so it will be back in the boat for me.
pretty ladies
