Smith Rock (Oregon)

May 26-29, 2005

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Trip report by Darrell (thanks Darrell :-)

After the usual flurry of semi-organizational emails the stalwart group became Karl, Kirsten, Leslie, Mark, Ed, Craig, Jake, Marci, Daniel, Darrell, Crystal, Brian, the Nathans and furry Pepper. We drove up in waves, arriving at various times on Thursday.

On Friday morning we hiked up and over Smith Rock, which is quite an experience on a hot sunny day like this one. Once over we found the shady Spiderman Buttress and broke out the gear. Various leaders crawled up Spiderman (5.7), the bolted Squashed Spider (5.7) slab, the aptly named best Left to Obscurity (first pitch, 5.7ish) flake, and In Harm's Way (5.7). We took advantage of the fact that these ropes hung over various other climbs, including the Spiderman Variation (5.7-) wide crack, Out of Harm's Way (5.8), and the stout More or Lester (5.10c).

The sun finally found us, so we pulled down the ropes and hid in the shade before breaking up into smaller groups. Craig, Marci, one of the Nathans, and Darrell sought out Phoenix Buttress. At some point, I'll try to figure out what we did that day.

Saturday was overcast and pleasantly cool. Most of us gathered at The Dihedrals, migrating around the left, center, and right areas. We started with Ancylostoma (5.9) and Bunny Face (5.7), and around the corner Jake and the other Nathan put up Moonshine Dihedral (5.9). We moved a rope to the quite entertaining Heinous Cling (5.12c) and Nathan found his way up Wedding Day (5.10b). Daniel and Leslie traded leads through Bookworm (5.7, 2 pitches), while the rest went to the right side for Karate Crack (5.10a). Marci put in a solid lead of Lichen It (5.7), and Kirsten followed suit with Cinnamon Slab (5.6).

The clouds dropped some rain now and again through the day but the weather didn't turn sour until late evening. We nixed cooking and found ourselves at a saloon in Redmond. Once fed and leftovers packed up for Pepper, we slept through a rainy night. At dawn things were quite wet, so we cut the weekend short and made the long drive south.

Gorgeous scenery