Smith Rock

July 2004

by John Lohr

I got a postcard once from Oregon, which featured a picture of the Monkey's Face at Smith Rock. I had no idea how big it was or how you might get on top or even exactly where Smith Rock was, but I thought it might be fun Monkey Face 1 to climb it. Damn, it looked exactly like the face of a monkey and a little like Jay Davis, who was in grad school with me. In the photo it looked as if it might be a boulder problem with eyes and a mouth. In 2003, there was a concerted Alpinistas effort to get together a little airplane trip to Smith Rock for some climbing which, alas, fell through. By then I had actually been to the Smith Rock State Park and seen that the Monkey was one big mother, that it could be witheringly hot there despite the high latitude and that there was a bunch of climbing, both traditional and sport, throughout the area. The classic route on the Monkey Face is a 5.7 A1 called the Pioneer Route, I found out. So, in 2004, we tried again. This time five Alpinistas and a dog flew nearly all the way in two little planes, both of which made it to Klamath Falls before they broke down. Fortunately, we were able to rent a car and make it the rest of the way more prosaically and with less downside risk.

At Smith Rock, one thing that was hard not to notice was that the park seemed to enjoy having the climbers there. I can say it is quite a refreshing change from the norm that the relationship between the shepherds and protectors of Smith Rock State Park and the sheep and other smelly unkempt climbing riff raff is so mutually supportive and synergistic. This results in an amazing sensitivity toward doing the right thing by the climbing community and an astounding laissez faire attitude on the part of the rangers. You pay your entrance fee and don't take a dump in a public place and you may never even see a ranger. OK, so I saw a ranger. There was no way this rotund guy was going to do much except empty the till from time to time, but he was helpful and friendly and laughed at the broken ticket machine. I wonder if this particular park employee was a metaphor for why so many people think Oregon is the place to be.

The guidebook, a true labor of love by Alan Watts, is terrific, with at least one specific comment on the Pioneer Route on the Monkey Face that would stand out in my dreams: "Panic Point is the most exciting 5.7 you will ever do; timid climbers savor the nauseating exposure from the security of their aiders." And that doesn't even bring up the 45 m free rappel to get off the thing. You swing lazily in the breeze while trying to remember that a lot of mgh has to be dissipated in your little bitty ATC and meltable ropes. The Pioneer Route was plenty for me. In case some of you hardasses want more, consider Just Do It, an awesome 5.14c, which was put up on the backside of the Monkey in 1992 by Jean-Baptiste Tribout. If you want something in between these extremes, there's plenty for you. Monkey Face 2

At the bottom of the bolt ladder on the Monkey there is a comfortable ledge where you can hobnob with better climbers on such routes as Monkey Space, a nice airy, really airy, 5.11b. The conversation went something like, "Where you from?" "San Diego." "Oh, cool, I'm from Pasadena." " Anywhere near JPL?" "Ya, I work there in microwave physics." "No kidding, I run a big microwave system at General Atomics in the fusion program." "No shit, small world." Then from some guy on the pitch below comes, "Hey, I'm living out of my car, if that counts for anything." The JPL guy then proceeded to take a hairy whizzer off Monkey Space, yanking his petite little belayer off her feet in a funky direction. Just another day on the rock.

A lot of this is in the movie of the trip, "Nauseating Exposure at Smith Rock," which came out just in time for the Oscars. If you see the movie, which is unlikely due to adult content, you will see that, unbeknownst to the Sloth at the time, he looks pretty stupid in his old Joe Brown helmet with the drooping moulding. Sloth wasted no time after getting back to San Diego in buying a new, cooler helmet just like the one the JPL guy had. Savvy marketeers will recognize the same dynamic here as that which sells Prana accessories by the bucketful. Cool is everything, even among the riff raff.

The main reason people come to Smith Rock from all over the world is for sport climbing. This activity, the top roping of the 21st century, looks hairy and is, but also is designed to be pretty safe. At Smith, the bolts are mostly 5/8 inchers and are looked after by the local climbing community on a regular basis.

The rock is interesting stuff, tuff, actually, from an ancient Miocene explosion, according to Watts. But embedded in the tuff are xenoliths of hard pumice and rhyolite. There also are numerous pockets varying in size from huge to way too small which are what's left of gas bubbles trapped in the tuff when it was laid down. Although these look a lot like places where the xenoliths popped out under someone's weight, the rock is much more stable than it looks and you just don't see rhyolite hunks lying all over the place amid the bones of the fallen climbers who relied on them.

Monkey Face 3 After some mechanical adventures with our small fleet of aging airplanes, the group of five plus dog unfolded from a rental car and headed for the Morning Glory Wall/Dihedrals area on the afternoon of our first day. Gina led Dorann and the Sloth up the famous Cinnamon Slab, a nice 5.6 warmup leading to a practice 35 m free hanging rap, while Tuck and Paul flexed on the Peanut in the Morning Glory Wall area next door. By dusk, everyone had done several of the 5.8-5.10 routes nearby (Note to self: Even though sport climbing is the toproping of the 21st century, you won't shit in your pants as often if you climb with someone who can set up a top rope for you). Although the cliffs look mighty scary, this little jaunt really built confidence for everyone except Bailey, who didn't much care.

The next day Sloth and Gina set out for the Monkey's Face with Tuck, Dorann, Bailey and Paul working out on the Mesa Verde Wall. Here they had a great view of the Monkey, so Paul and Tuck had expected to get exciting pictures of Sloth and Gina on the aid portion of the Monkey. Unfortunately, the movie stars were so slow that after a while the photogs turned to climbing, leaving Sloth to wish he had a fifi hook and Gina to savor the exposure in anonymity and semi-isolation, which was as it should have been. Besides the climbing, a major highlight of the day was getting Bailey up and over Asterisk Pass. This was something like a helicopter evacuation without the helicopter and Bailey really had fun. Arf (I trust you, man, don't drop me).

Catalina vortex On the third day, Sloth went visiting and the rest of the crew were freed from their babysitting to climb some real tuff stuff. The group worked out on the Morning Glory Wall area with some spectacular vertical sport climbs and also hit the Rope de Dope block across the river, the closest thing to Alpinista Wednesday evening climbing available at Smith Rock.

On the last day on the rock, Gina and the sloth went to Spiderman Buttress and did Spiderman, a 5.7**** route featuring a cool roof and some bitchy climbing babes complaining about getting pebbles knocked down on them (you try getting off this thing without knocking down some shit) and a perfectly sculpted German couple, who were backing off below the roof. Meanwhile Tuck and Paul were doing impossible moves on Phoenix Buttress and the Northeast Face, including License to Bolt (5.11b), Drill 'em and Fill 'em (5.10a) and Fred on Air (5.10d).

After four great days, it was off to a dinner extravaganza at Crater Lake National Park, another night in Klamath Falls and the flight home. This time, following ignition coil replacement on the Cessna and a new alternator on the Piper, both airplanes worked well and we were home before dark. The picture of the Catalina Eddy shows the extremely interesting things you can see from small airplanes.

The bottom line is if you ever have any excuse to go to Oregon, for example you are looking for a cheap place to retire that has an infinite amount of things to do for fun outside, make it a point to take your rope, shoes, harness and a few draws, get onto the eastern side of the Cascades at Redmond and check out Smith Rock. You'll have a great time. For more information, a live web cam and some hilarious videos of Smith Rock climbing, take a look at www.smithrock.com.

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A Los Alpinistas story by John Lohr.