Smith Rock - Nov 2025
Smith Rock State Park, located just North of Redmond, Oregon, is a beautiful state park, widely considered to be the birthplace of sport climbing in North America.
From November 8 to 16, I went down with a group of friends for my longest climbing trip yet.
The drive down from Vancouver took a little over eight hours, but with some faff, traffic, food stops, driver changes, and groceries once past the border, it was closer to 12 hours. We arrived at our campsite, the Smith Rock Bivouac Area, in the dark, but luckily there were toilets, sinks, heated water, and showers for us to prepare before heading to bed.
I didn’t realize that deserts get so cold, so I was shivering a bit that first night. I did know that it was November, and that I am susceptible to the cold, though, and I was somewhat prepared but still made adjustments on subsequent nights.
Waking up the next morning, Smith Rock was in plain view from the tents. It stuck out like a sore thumb, but even this sight didn’t do it justice. We ate, got changed, packed up our gear, and headed on the trail into the park from our campsite.
Upon joining the main trail, the park bestowed upon us the classic first view of Smith Rock.
We arrived at Phoenix Wall, where we spent most of the day. We climbed most of the sport routes offered, from 5.8 to 5.11-, with a 5.11c that only Sam attempted.
They were all quite fun! I managed to get up the 11- with some falls by climbing along the left side that featured a smooth face and some mono-pockets. Fun, tiring, and beautiful!
We eventually started to walk back and stopped to scout some other walls and to try one more climb before we left for the day. By this point it was dark and everyone got their headlamps on for dinner at the campsite.
Most days, we had some sort of sharing dinner set up, from tacos to curries to hot pot. This made for a nice respite from the cold that began to set in shortly after sunset.
Our second day of climbing was Monday which, as a weekday, meant an emptier crag and more climbs for us. This time we went to Llama Wall, which featured a similar range of climbs in the 10s and 11s, plus some harder climbs as well. I climbed a couple of long pumpy routes and had particular fun on Llama Enlightenment(5.10c) and Entering Relativity(5.10d).
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Afterwards, we moved towards Morning Glory Wall for some end-of-day climbing. Morning Glory Wall is one of the most popular areas in Smith, being in the sun for most of the day and housing some classic Smith climbs. It is very vertical and showcases lots of massive huecos (the giant holes in the image below) which make for some awesome climbing.
We climbed until it started to get dark and called it to be the last climb of the night, putting on headlamps to help finish the climbs.
Before ending this day, two things of note:
- This wall (as well as Mesa Verde) featured some pretty big (but apparently classic for Smith) runouts, with the first bolt sometimes nearly 4m off the ground. Never will I complain about Squamish bolting again!
- While climbing at Morning Glory Wall, the people before us bailed, leaving a locker, and I raced Lauren for it. I won and got my first piece of booty! After looking it up, I found the carabiner apparently had certifications, but also cost about $3 on Ali Express… so I’m not sure I’ll be using it anytime soon.
The third day was Mischa’s last day, as Wednesday would be his drive home. We decided to climb a multi, and headed up to the Red Wall Area to climb Dirty Pinkos a cool 5.9 multi with a traverse pitch. Mischa and I swapped leads and got some beautiful views along the climb and from the top. Unfortunately, we got lost on the descent and went down the backside of the mountain. We hiked back up and then down again to our stuff before climbing some other fun routes in the area.
I find it funny how all around Smith Rock State Park there are farms and flat land, then BOOM! Smith Rock comes out of nowhere looking like Moridor from LotR’s Middle Earth (or something of the likes).
We finished up climbing until sunset, as was the norm, but ended with a small epic. Mischa was climbing the last route of the day, and cleaned by putting the rope through chains that were not the bottom link. The rope was quite fat and the links were too small, so he put it through some larger ones above. This led to the rope becoming pinched and creating much more friction than normal, and he was almost stuck on the wall. We had to leave the rope and come back the next day. We discussed this plenty and decided that the right thing would have been to untie and thread the rope through the bottom links and re-tie in.
The next two days I was unfortunately sick and didn’t do much, just rested, ate, slept, and stayed warm. The others had work to do, so we went to the library in town where I found a chair and slept.
Friday, I was feeling much better, and with the morning looking so beautiful, I decided I would like to climb, but nothing too difficult. Sam, who was debating leaving that morning, saw how beautiful it was and declared that he, Chloe, and I should climb the classic Monkey Face before he left for the drive home with Emily.
I joined as a passenger princess, not belaying or leading anything. It was a blast! We climbed the West Face variation which started with a 2 pitches of trad that Sam led beautifully, then joined up with the pioneer route for an aid pitch up into the monkey’s mouth and finished with a cool sport traverse out the side before ending on the monkey’s head.
The descent was a huge 60m rap into free space, leaving us with incredible views and a fantastic dessert to an already marvelous route!
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The aid pitch was much harder than I thought. I watched Chloe climb it before I went, and I couldn’t help thinking “Why are you going so slowly? Just step up already.” However, by the time I got there, I found it was much more challenging than it looked and Chloe had made fantastic time! While it seems trivial because you have ropes to pull, they are not solid, and there is a lot of core required to constantly pull up, stabilize, load, and unload the gear.
After Sam left, Chloe and I walked to the Gorge and checked out the beautiful columnar basalt. It was so cool! I was very surprised that people weren’t really talking about it much, and on a later trip I would very much like to do some climbing in the Gorge.
Saturday was our last day (as Sunday was the drive back). We set out early and headed to Mesa Verde Wall for some more fantastic sport climbing.
The trip there was a long one since it is one of the furthest walls. We went over Asterix Pass (which was kinda tough with all the gear on our backs ngl), and luckily arrived to find we were the first ones. I climbed Screaming Yellow Zonkers and Moons of Pluto, both great routes featuring face climbing, plenty of nubbins, and a fantastic face with a wonderful view. Again, both of these had a very sketchy start by Squamish standards. It wasn’t too tricky, but it was certainly climbing, and falling would have some consequences!
I fell a couple times on Moons of Pluto, and I had psyched myself up, wanting to flash it. I think I had let that sour my mood a bit. I brought both my trad rack and Chloe’s in my backpack, so she suggested we head over to Spiderman Buttress where we climbed an easy 3 pitch trad multi, Spiderman variation.
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It had some pretty awesome crack moves, and a great view of the sunset from the top! We hung out before rapping down, collecting our stuff, and heading back for our final night.
Sunday we drove back, listened to some Criminal podcasts, and arrived home. I was excited to be home and to have my own shower, bed, and kitchen again.