We visited Smith Rock State Park in Terrebonne, OR with Katie and Mike today. It was very convenient to River Rim RV Park (less than 20 minutes). Being a Saturday, I should have realized there would be quite a crowd. It was a little difficult to find parking close to the trailhead. Joani found out later that Smith Rock is a world-famous climbing destination. Just a wild guess, but I would say I saw 50 to 100 climbers as we hiked below the vertical rock faces.
We initially chose an easy hike, the River Trail, that winds clockwise around Smith Rock and ends at Monkey Face.
Asterisks Pass is an easy scramble on the east side, but on the west side, it is not a hiking trail. SummitPost.org says, the west side "is a 4th class scramble with enough potential for a "damaging" fall to give many a pause." We didn't even pause, we just continued on the easy River Trail.
I would love to do this hike in the spring and again in the fall.
In some areas across the river at the base of the cliffs, we noticed irrigation sprinklers and farm equipment. Magnificent homes line the cliffs to the west.
Once Monkey Face came into view, a decision had to be made: turn around and retrace our steps on the easy trail or go for the gold and hike the Misery Ridge trail to complete a loop back to our starting point.
We went for it and, boy howdy, it was worth it.
The ascent was pretty fast with stairs in places and lots of switchbacks. The climb was so steep that my knees would not want to come back down this way.
Can you tell how the rock got its name? The climbers are in the monkey's mouth.
We had hiked up and around to the back side of Monkey Face and the view just kept getting better.
One climber was sitting in the mouth of the Monkey with a white helmet on taking in the view.
Not quite at the top, a plateau opens up (Monkey Face viewpoint) making it a great place to pause and take in the view. Below, the Crooked River wound to the west/north/west (the direction of our campground).
Looking west/south/west, the Three Sisters make a beautiful backdrop for the valley.
Many of Oregon's Cascade peaks can be seen from this viewpoint.
Katie snapped our picture once we reached the Misery Ridge summit.
What goes up must come down. Lots of switchbacks in our future. On the last switchback in the picture above is a small crowd. A young woman badly twisted an ankle and needed a rescue crew's assistance to get back down.
Almost there, but once you cross the bridge you also have to climb back up the other side to the car parked at the upper left corner of the picture. Uff da!!!
The ranger was waiting for us to get down to close the trail due to the injured hiker.
I would have liked to ice down my knees after that hike, but I guess it wasn't really so bad. We did, however, return home and guzzled lots of cold drinks to re-hydrate. Something about a tough hike coupled with the sun and the wind and extremely low humidity really takes it out of you - or it could just be we're not getting any younger!
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