More climbing at Smith Rock

Once again the weather looked good for a weekend of climbing out at Smith Rock. And once again we loaded up Greg's Explorer Friday after work and headed over the mountain. Saturday morning we made our way from the 'Grass Lands' down to the rock. It was another great day of climbing.

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Greg setting a routes in the morning sun.

After getting in a few good climbs that morning, Max (Jodie and Jeremy's dog) was becoming restless after just sitting around all day watching us climb. So sense I was pretty much done climbing for the day, I took the dog for a walk to help calm him down. We walked around the southern point of the park to the back side. Where I got a couple of shots of 'Monkey Face'.
The dog and I soon headed back to meet back up with the rest of the group.

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'Monkey Face'

Sunday morning we headed back to the rock for another go. Lane said that he would try the lead on 'Dances with Clams'. With Lane offering to lead 'Dances with Clams' this freed Greg to go climb "Teddy Bear's Picnic" with Jake. Things soon got ugly, while trying to clip the second bolt. Lane pealed off the rock, yelling "FALLING!!!!". I tried to grab some of the slack, my first mistake. As Lane pummeled to the ground, I could feel the slack of the rope burn through my hands and before my ATC stopped the rope. Being the second bolt this meant that Lane was almost as far above the first bolt as the first bolt was off the ground (one of the worst places to fall from). Lane hit the ground, giving us both a scare and shaking us up a bit. After a few minutes to re compose our selfs, Lane jumped back on the climb. Lane styled the climb this time. It was my turn now, after dousing my rope burnt fingers with some cold water and a quick refresher from Lane on how to clean and rap a route (something that I had never done before). I made my attempt on the climb. About half way up I realized that the rope burns on my fingers were beginning to blister. pushing through the pain I managed to reach the top. Cleaned and rapped the climb without too much problem, other than having to figure out how to un-weight one of the beaners to get it back with out taking off my safety line. After all of that excitement, I was one climbing for the day. This was fine with me, it felt good just to be lazy the rest of the day. Watching everyone else climbing and giving a bely when ever needed.

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Come on Greg, reach! you've got it, now pull!

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Jake leading some 5.11?

All in all this was yet another great weekend of climbing at Smith Rock. I'm sure we'll be back for more soon, so stay tuned for the next episode. Until then have fun and be safe.