Smith Rock State Park

Even though we awoke to a gray, slightly rainy day, we decided to stick with our plan to drive to Smith Rock State Park hoping things would clear up so we could enjoy a hike.

Smith Rock (no record of the identity of Smith) is a 600 foot high mountain of hardened tuff, 3200 ft above sea level. The Crooked River cuts through the area leaving a beautiful canyon.

There are numerous hiking trails and over 1000 rock climbing routes, some with fixed bolts.

The weather did turn sunny, so we made plans for our hike. One hike takes you up over a saddle on the rocks and then around a large portion of rocks. I am never happy climbing down on rough terrain so we chose to descend to the river level and walk along the river with a return by the same route — about five miles. All along our route we could watch the rock climbers and hear them giving directions to each other.

There were a fair number of ducks and geese in the river, some babies, and lots of magpies.

At the end of the day we returned to Amanda and Brian’s. We will eat with them tonight and start heading north and east tomorrow. We want to drive through the Hell’s Canyon area before we start the big push for home

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)