You're on belay.
Thank you, sir.
Good morning. Rolled up to Smith Rock late last night, set up camp and
we're gonna go get some climbing in.
What's up, dude?
Good morning, man.
This is my buddy Powers.
Welcome to Smith.
I don't think of myself as an expert climber by any
means, but rock climbing is one of my favorite things to do and
Smith Rock in central Oregon's high desert is one of the country's best
places to do it. I gathered a couple of my buddies and we set off for a weekend
to try a few climbs together.
So, I don't know if you guys can see like the jumble of rocks kind of exactly twelve o'clock.
The three steps to the right of 'em —we're gonna basically climb right up that and then into the crack
at like one o'clock and just up that gully — and that's the first climb.
There are hundreds of climbing routes at Smith, including a bunch of easy and moderate
ones, so we decided to try our hand at climbs in three different areas of the park.
Smith is kind of the birthplace of sport climbing in the US. So in the 80s,
folks started coming out to Smith and bolting some routes and this is where it
kind of took off for this part of the world.
One of the things I like about Smith is you can go
and get on any number of moderates in a given day.
You can do a bunch of single pitch moderates.
I don't want to be a 5.12 climber necessarily outside.
I would much rather do cool stuff that's a
little bit more within my comfort zone.
Right.
Yeah, I don't think any of us are chasing grades.
And let's be honest, like I'm not gonna be a 5.12 climber,
so it's good that I don't want to be that.
For our first climb, we headed to the Dihedrals area for a route known as
Bunny Face. It's a two-pitch sport climb rated at 5.7,
which means it's approachable for a beginner multi-pitch climber.
The climbs we tried on day one are multi-pitches, or
longer routes broken up by at least one stop or belay part-way up the wall.
I just put on my rock climbing harness, which is kind of
the number one thing that you use to connect you with
the rope and by effect the wall.
I have here what we call a personal anchor system, so I
hitch this onto my harness and use that as a point of contact into the wall itself,
which has like bolted anchors on it.
What do you say, man?
Let's do it.
Alright, see in a bit. On belay.
Not yet, but as soon as you clip in.
That's true.
Alright, climbing.
Climb on.
Each of the climbs we chose are called sport routes, where climbers clip to
existing bolts on their way to a bolted anchor point.
It's the belayer's job to hold the rope securely, manage rope tension,
and catch any falls.
This climb was fairly straightforward.
The toughest part was the beginning of the second
pitch where we had to maneuver our way from a ledge to an adjacent rock face.
Bunny Face is a great route for practicing multi-pitch
systems and it was really cool for our crew of climbers to gain more confidence on the wall.
Good work, Jim Jim.
Thanks, buddy. Great climb.
After finishing up, we headed over to our second climb,
a spectacular five pitch route known as First Kiss.
It's rated 5.8 and offers a bit more difficult climbing than our previous route.
Plan has changed. We are going to climb two pitches of the five pitch route,
because we ran a little bit slower than we wanted to, which is totally okay.
It's gorgeous out and we're just gonna rappel back down and enjoy the rest of our night,
instead of finishing in the dark.
Why don't we do it?
Get it, brother.
See you in a bit.
You're on belay.
Thank you, sir.
Even though we didn't climb all five pitches this time, the sunset was spectacular
and we still had a blast climbing.
Just as the sun was setting, we hiked out for the night and got some rest
before our next climb.
Our interest in rock climbing is around the adventure and like where it takes you.
And so like bridging the gap now into like multi-pitching and like the
focus on this video is like pretty low-grade, accessible climbs but knowing
the systems and knowing the skills to be able to do multi-pitches and lead climb.
And like do that stuff safely opens up a whole realm of things to do, not only
here but like when we go into the Alpine and mixing that with like the mountaineering
stuff that we do.
Knowing that you have something to fill all the parts of the year.
If I can blend climbing and skiing and mountaineering and all of that
all together, then that's a pretty good outing.
You want to get after it?
Yeah.
Let's do it.
Ah, that heated seat.
We ended up hiking over to the Monument Area to climb
one final route — a single pitch 5.7.
Frank and Jim, you guys are good to come up.
Alright Jim, you can take.
Take. Yes, sir.
Alright, I'm on you.
See you, man.
You can lower.
We wrapped up our last climb and hadn't even left the park before
we were scheming up what climbs to try during our next trip to Smith.
Hey there folks, I'm Jim Ryan. Thanks so much for watching our latest episode of
Peak Northwest. We love hearing your feedback and if you feel so inclined
drop me a note and let me know what you think of the series so far and where you
think we should go in the future. Thanks again for watching and we'll see you soon.