Smith Rock State Park

This is a difficult blog to write, there were so many things happening it is difficult to get them all down. 

Pulling in we were taken by the beauty of the rocks.

Day one, orientation;

Matt Davey stopped by to give us our paperwork and orientation.  Within 3 minutes Bandit was setting next to him.  Those that know Bandit know this is a minor miracle. 

It didn't take us long to get our uniforms squared away and to learn the ropes of the visitor center.

It took us three days of hiking around to identify all of the different climbing sections in the guide book. 
Along the way we got to see the Monkey Face Rock, we hope to climb it one day.

And then there is Misery Ridge, 1/2 mile, 600' vertical.

Because we had this wonderful area right out our front door we had the opportunity to get to know some of the local residents. Our favorite is the young family that lived next door.

We even had our own Bambi and Thumper;

We can't leave Johnny No Legs out;

There are several individual sections of the State Park, each with it's own type of beauty.  This is Barbara being brave on a point at the top of Misery Ridge. 

Nearby is Kissing Rock

Such sights as Mt. Jefferson on the horizon;

Every evening we were treated to the Marsupial range getting lit up and painted gold by the evening sun.

Back side of Smith Rock Group

An Osprey hunting

And then there was the Rock Climbing.  Nearly every day you would find us hiking to a new section to climb a route or two.  It didn't take us long to learn how to hunt climbing routes that were in the shade.  Temperatures in the valley would often times be 10 degrees hotter than on top of the plateau were the camper was. Each evening the climbing gear would get hung up and resorted.

 

At one point we even hired a guide, partly for instruction and partly just to try some routes that are above our comfort zone. 

 

 

Gabe Coler, interesting person, google him.

 

How many climbs did we do? Don't remember, here are some;



Even Mocha and Bandit tried bouldering;

 

This is all near Redmond, Or, home of the forest fire airborne bombers.  So we were treated to very close up views of the bombers as they would come and go on their bombing runs to fight the many forest fires that are burning in the surrounding area.

 



 

All in all it was a pretty cool place to hang around for a month, we are even breaking our own rule, we will be returning here next spring for 2 months.  We didn't even have time to explore the areas outside of the state park.







Santium River

We jumped off of I-5 near Salem, Or and took highway 22 towards Bend, Or.  Along the way we stopped at a little campground in Idanha, Or.  While there we learned that the Santiam river was a favored rafting trip, category II. 

We had to back track a little to get downstream of the Detroit Lake, but found the put in/take out spots easily.  We talked with a coupled of locals to get pertinent information.  We fallowed a couple of lads that do the float trip a couple of times a year and they gave us a heads up on the 2 big holes you had to go through. 

Columbia Gourge, East of Portland, OR

On our way south we had spotted a climbing area just north of the Oregon border.  Ainsworth State Park, OR was just a few miles away.  We were astounded by the beauty of this valley. 

We only had a couple of days.  So rather than go rock climbing we visited the water falls along the valley. 

We also visited Vista House, it had really nice views.