Smith Rock State Park

Smith Rock State Park is one of Central Oregon's major scenic attractions for hikers and sport climbing destinations for rock climbers. Located 20 minutes from Redmond just east of Highway 97 at Terrebonne, Oregon this state park draws the interest of numerous climbers who relish the sheer tuff and basalt cliffs which are ideal for a wide variety of rock climbing (from sport to traditional, including multi-pitch routes, and bouldering).

This state park recreation site hosts many miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, along the Crooked River and treading up steep hills to vistas with breathtaking photographic views of Central Oregon. The quality and substantial diversity of rock climbing opportunities, all hosted in a dry semi-arid climate with 300 days on sunshine a year, provides rock climbers from throughout the region with a key destination to practice their climbing agility skills.

The popularity of Smith Rock State Park grew from a limited traditional style of ground-up climbing, into becoming one of the most popular centerpiece destinations for sport climbing in the western U.S.

Composed of relatively soft welded light-colored rhyolitic tuff, the crisply vertical and angular aspects of its tall cliff formations create unique and technically challenging and virtually unlimited rock climbing opportunities. The nearby Lower Gorge offers an additional wide spectrum of traditional crack gear leads and techy sport routes on vertical columnar basalt. The back-country BLM land next to this vital state park system offers virtually endless adventurous climbing on various pinnacles and large rock outcrops ranging from Wombat to Squaw Rock.

Weekends in the core areas (Red Wall to The Dihedrals to Asterisk Pass) are heavily trafficked, but if you visit on weekdays you will often find the climbing atmosphere in the park much more amenable. When you venture further abroad in the state park to rock climb (such as The Wombat, the Lower Gorge or over to the west side near Monkey Face) you often find less congested climbing opportunities.

Rock climbers initially explored Smith Rock as early as 1935, with an ascent of Squaw Rock by John Bissell. Various groups of adventurers touched briefly upon Smith Rock over the next 20 years, when in 1955 Vivian and Gil Staender began tackling a broad number of pinnacle outcrops. Even the Ramsey brothers (who lived locally) were energized and tapped a selection of early ascents.

In the 1960s Smith Rock became a full fledged state park entity, and with this added benefit, climber interest unfolded further. Monkey Face was aided in January 1960 by Dave Bohn, Jim Frazer, and Vivian Staender via the Pioneer Route.

The Awl was free climbed by Jim Ramsey, but during that same era various crack routes and ridges like Sky Ridge were completed. The Bauman brothers sent a fine string of quality routes ranging broadly from Cinnamon Slab to Peking. Other teams (Strauch-Gates) powered routes like Spiderman, and King Kong.

The 1970s brought a shift in emphasis toward freeing old aid routes, and this produced a variety of new powerhouse climbs ranging from 5.10a to 5.11 range with Jeff Thomas breaking ground on a number of these new climbs. A variety of teams tread the Smith Rock scene. Some were drawn to the basalt columns, while others were drawn to the tiny world of bouldering methodology found readily within the park.

The next decade, jazzed by this wealth of past energy, climber's embarked upon an advantageous new trend, partly tied to several unique earlier events. The first, being Ramsey's free ascent of The Awl, and then also by Jennings/Cummings rappel bolted process that opened up the means for making an ascent of Sky Ridge. This event combo provided the answer to Alan Watts and compatriots felt partiality to this new methodology of rappel bolting and preparatory lead climbing. This diverse core team of friends pioneered this new dimension in free climbing at Smith Rock, propelling the grades into the mid-5.12s, then into the 5.13s, and finally with a visit by several French climbers (Tribout & Troussier) they bumped it into the infinite realm of 5.14 with the route To Bolt Or Not To Be (5.14a).

From the 1990s through today, Smith Rock State Park has continued to expand the sport of rock climbing to still greater diversity with the creation of moderate multi-pitch routes that draw considerable interest.

Smith Rock is a prime regional site in Oregon where both individuals and commercial instructional guided entities have sufficient room to advance the sport. This large outdoor environment, where user groups, both large and small can enjoy the sport reasonably well in a large and diverse landscape, with a wealth of route grades of all levels that can meet the needs of everyone.

The Monkey Face formation at Smith Rock is a 350' spire that has a dark top-notch that roughly resembles the head of a monkey when viewed from the south, as revealed by the indents of its mouth, eye, nose and ear. The vertical spire overhangs slightly on each of the four sides, which gives the ascent its spicy nature for sport climbers. The first ascent was completed in early 1960 by D. Bohn, J. Fraser, V. Staender. The route they climbed is also the easiest route to the summit, called the Pioneer route (5.7 A0), which today is still a popular and relatively enjoyable bolt ladder. The last lead out of the lip of the monkeys 'mouth' is usually free climbed at 5.7. Monkey Face also sports one of the hardest free climbs (Just Do It 5.14c) in the state park, which is located on its sheer abruptly sliced eastern aspect.

Site Information, Local Retail Businesses & Public Entities:

Services: The nearest gas station is located in Terrebonne.

Amenities: Terrebonne has several eateries (Mexican and fast-food). Redmond has a broad selection of grocery stores, restaurants, pubs, and motels.

Camping: A walk-in bivouac tent camping (no reservations) is available, but the remainder of the park is day-use only. Car camping (fee) is available at the Grasslands BLM site east of Smith Rocks 8 miles. Lodging is available in Redmond.

Administrative Agency: Day-use fee site. This park is administered by Oregon State Parks and Recreation.

Seasonal Factors: The best season for climbing is from April-May in the Spring, or even early Summer morning hours. Then for three months in the Fall season nice temperatures reign from Sept-Nov. Winter months tend to dip into the low daytime temps that limit most climber enthusiasm wanes, though some windless winter days are surprisingly reasonable.

  • Low night time winter temps: Nov-March 20°F-30°F average (occasionally lower to the 10°s).
  • High day time winter temps: Nov-March 40°F-55°F average.
  • High day time summer temps May-August 70°F-90°F average (anticipate daytime summer highs that regularly reach 100°F).
Additional Info:

Climbing gear stores:

Redpoint Climbers Supply store: A broad selection of climbing equipment, a source for route information, seasonal bird nesting closures, guidebooks and more. Open variable hours depending on the season.

Rockhard store: On Crooked River Drive just outside the park entrance before the bivouac parking area. A good selection of climbing equipment, books, and more.

Reference sources: Rock Climbing Oregon (Bolf and Ruef); Weekend Rock: Oregon (Horton); Rock Climbing Smith Rock State Park (Watts).

For further info or guidebooks see: Rock Climbing Smith Rock (A. Watts), Smith Rock Select (J. Thesenga), or various regional guideboks, web blogs and forums.