Lovetoclimb

You climbing these days Ryan? I climb trees all the time. Rocks? Rarely.

I thought that was a canister to pee in. Oops. My bad.

After working out at Rocky Butte those days I just kept wondering why this place is just such an under visited mossfest. If the pioneers of these lines would allow others to re-clean, retro when necessary, and add some convenience anchors I feel like this place could be a pretty appealing climbing area. As far as the ignorant climber plummeting problem of easily accessed bolts, I would just call that natural selection. As someone who has put up well over 100 climbs, I know that I want people to climb my routes. If that means changing some bolt placements or adding convenience anchors so be it. I know. I just kicked the hornets nest. So be it. Let the crying begin. Boo hoo. Waaaa. What makes sense to allow the most people to get out and enjoy the area? Not what makes sense to keep the cliffs mossy, ivy covered, and abandoned until some egocentric person goes and recleans it, redpoints after getting it dialed on tr because it is too scary to lead, and then it is abandoned for another 5 years until the next cleaning/ego stoking session.

You'll really love this part. We were getting paid to do it. I'm not an old guy on an ATV with a bunch of beer. I'm a 34 year old guy who just happens to be an arborist who works periodically with the tree service that got the contract to do the invasive species removal on the cliffs that the inmate work crews or city crews can't work on. We just get it on the ground and then it isn't our problem anymore. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that have to deal with it at that point. On the route by the cross at the Grotto there was a sling tied to a chockstone way back in the crack and also some bolts at the top so I think at some point someone did do that line.

My angle is this. People are free to do what they want at Smith and shouldn't have the "Climbing Community" of ya do it Ian folks deciding what they should or shouldn't do. If you are endangering someone else or ruining someone elses experience then obviously you shouldn't do it. Those two bolts out at the northeast corner of Monkey Face if used by a competent considerate person would put no one in danger except themselves. I would bet that if the climbing community as a whole made decisions on things instead of the "ya do it climbing community" things would look a bit different at most climbing areas Smith included.

No I'm not talking about little girls buried in the woods. I'm talking about cliffs that were covered in ivy and have been uncovered. Anybody seen it? What were your thoughts? It was a fun project. The best part was getting to rappel from behind the cross on the building at the edge of the cliff at the Grotto to clean ivy off of that cliff. That has to be the most classic looking line I've seen in Oregon. Too bad it isn't open for climbing. Now the inmate work crews get the fun job of going in there and packing all of that crap out. Better than hanging out in jail I guess. Sorry no pics. Guess all you PDX crag rats will have to go stomp around in the woods getting dirty condoms stuck to your shoes and broken glass in your hands when you slip on said condoms to see what I'm talking about.

If I want to do that swing I would not hesitate to go up there and slam in new bolts. Good bolts! Ones that can't be chopped without a hacksaw or a cordless grinder! Glue-ins! The best bolts in the world! Would I take out anyone with a rope? No. Would I monopolize the monkey for a day? No. Competence and technical skill seem to be lacking at the crags these days. Just a bunch of kids with strong fingers and no idea of how to do anything they can't get off of with one rope. I swing on ropes for a living. Do I take people out with my ropes? No. If I am worried about a rope snagging on something I put it in a bag and clip it to my harness. Problem solved. Was the person swinging a jackass? Yes. Misusing climbing gear? For swinging? What is harder on a rope and biners? A bunch of little falls onto a bolt while hangdogging up a hard route or one big swing with a ton of rope out? The latter would likely be easier on the equipment because of the amount of rope out and the fact that the swing would disapate a lot of the energy. I feel bad for the people who got hurt and if I were them I would be pissed. And I probably would find out who the swinger was and sue him or her. But that said I think that if you can do something competently and not endanger others then you should be free to do so. That is the beauty of Smith and the climbing there. It is somewhere that you can go, and do thrilling things in a beautiful place with no government agency looking over your shoulder. I'm looking forward to going out to Smith and pulling all of the fixed draws that I hate so much. That is some shit worth pulling.

Journey is going to be a bit harder than Picnic Lunch Wall. More mandatory thin nailing. Enchanted hooks high on the route with bad falls possible because it is kind of slabby on the upper two pitches. But you will always be caught by fatty bolts as most everything was replaced on the second ascent. FA party was kind of dicks and removed hardware or had special bat hooks that they used and then f'd the holes to make repeat ascents harder (hence the enchanted hooks). I wasn't trying to be passive agressive. But I could see how it could come off that way. I'm just saying do PLW clean. It can be done, it isn't unsafe. There are lots of fatty bolts up there, it is steep, and the falls that could happen will likely be clean.

So if everybody knows it went free, and everybody knows it goes hammerless then why are people still nailing it and saying in the TR that it would go hammerless? Probably the same reason people take how many days to climb 500 feet? I know Smith is just a muddy craphole that nobody cares about but I think that people could do better? Perhaps?

If climbers would use good bolts in this country (glue-in eye bolts)and get away from using crappy Rawls and standard hangers then they could lower off of any bolt and not leave any biners behind. Or you can use the retrieveable webbing loop trick and not leave anything on any type of hanger.

Did anybody see St Peters Dome a few weeks ago when it had the fat ice streak running down the northwest side? Has anybody climbed that when it was in condition?

A few years ago a friend and I were at Smith and we cleaned all of the crap off the east face of the Monkey. It looked great! Then we went and cleaned all of the crap off of The Big R and The Starvation Fruit. I also pulled old abandoned fixed lines off of a bunch of abandoned projects at Smith. No matter how much crap gets pulled off of the walls at Smith, more crap gets put up there. Bolts that I place or replace are crap, draws are crap, fixed lines are crap, chalk is crap. And it all seems like quite a waste of time to me these days. The hours you all spend bullshitting about it seems like even more of a waste of time than actually going out and putting more crap on the cliffs so people can go take it down when you lose interest in your hobby or you have kids and a wife and can't go climbing anymore. Don't let that happen. Get a fucking vascectomy. I hate seeing fixed draws everywhere at Smith. In my opinion they should all be pulled. But who am I. I'm just one climber who has spent way too many hours there.

Seems pretty lame to just close it to climbing but allow all other uses to continue including hunting, hiking, and grazing. I can understand avoiding and respecting important religious sites, but to just single out climbing just doesn't seem right.

I'm getting ready to do a big batch of bolt replacement from April 7-20. I have a pretty good idea of some routes that I want to work on but if people have stuff that they are seeing that needs work, please post it here, send me a pm, or send me an email. This work is supported through the American Safe Climbing Association and also now through Climbing Magazine and The North Face's Anchor Replacment Initiative who is also sending us a bunch of hardware to use for replacment at Smith. Please support the companies that support the ARI and for those of you with jobs who need tax deductions please make donations to the American Safe Climbing Association. Some things that help me when it comes time to do replacment is having people who are willing to climb and fix lines on routes that need replacement. When I'm in bolt replacement mode, all I want to do is jug up and work. I don't want to have to carry a lead rope, rock shoes and quickdraws and all of that nonsense. Especially when I'm carrying a huge pack of tools, bolts, and glue. Also, please stay off routes that have just had replacment work done because I will be using glue in bolts that need time to set. (Usually only a few hours depending on temperature.) One last thing. Please think about how much bolts and bolt maintenance make Smith the fun place that it is for all of us and don't just take it for granted. Our crag like so many all over this country is covered with crap bolts because climbers are too cheap to place good hardware, they don't hold themselves to a high standard when it comes to the bolts that they place or the placments that they are making, and if they make a mistake, they don't go back and fix it. A number of the routes that have gone up in the last ten years have been very poorly bolted. They have bolts in bad places, lead bolts and belays that are already loose, and inadequete hardware was used either when it comes to bolt size, bolt type, or anchor setups. Who's responsibility are these "gifts" to the climbing community? Personally I have a hard time going out and doing replacment on these new routes. I take pride in the work that I do whether it is at my job, putting up a new route, or doing bolt replacment. I take it very seriously and I wish other people would as well. It certainly isn't something to take lightly. If you have put up a route and it needs maintenance, please make sure that it gets done. If you don't have the experience to do as good of a job as you would like, please feel free to contact me and I can assist you or point you in the direction of someone who can. As someone who has put up over 100 routes at Smith I know some of my routes need maintenance and I will be doing some of that in the next few weeks with my own hardware not ASCA or ARI stuff. One of them has two bolts that need to be moved because they are in bad spots. Another needs a separate rappel anchor added because of the amount of traffic it receives. Both of those projects will take up a big chunk of a day, but I think since those are my routes, that I should take care of those issues. Thanks and I'll see you out at the crag.

it doesn't suprise me at all that a terrebonnian would need 2.5 hours to make it to smiff Actually I live in Hood River. But I agree that most tear a bone againians would probably take 2.5 hours to make it to Smith. They have to call their parole officer and make sure it is ok, drop off their wife/cousin at high school, and hit up the local meth house and then tweek their way down the trail.

Enjoy your secret moss fest. I'll drive 2.5 hours to Smith and climb and solidified mud/rock instead of spending days cleaning mud off the rock.

What crag what routes? Looks like perhaps Broughtons? On second thought I think it doesn't look like Broughtons. The dirt and moss threw me for a second. The tree canopy is all wrong for Broughtons and the rock isn't angular enough. So where is this hidden dirt pile covered in moss?

Well said Tyler. Go climbing boys and girls. Stop de bitching. Trout Creek, Mecca, Bills Columns, The Gorge at Smith, Pete's Pile, would all be pretty good places to stay in shape for Beacon. Are they Beacon? No. Are the rules and regs fucked up? Of course. It is our government were talking about. Deal with it. Next topic.

What I have done in the past at Smith is toprope the line to check the clipping stances, mark where I want the bolts, and then climb, either with the drill on me, or pulling it up after I sit on the hooks. Most of the time though I found that I would rather have the drill on my harness. It is also pretty fun just going for it onsight though and trying to get the bolts in good places and do a good job placing good bolts. What are the ethics at the crag? Top down usually makes for a better finished product. Ground up is good for your ego. Especially if you can keep the bolts widely spaced.

Currently there isn't a ranger on staff at Smith Rock. The park has a park manager (Dave Slaught), and I think a bathroom cleaner (Big Jay), and they have some park hosts who are camping out in the Bivy Area in their RV. The park manager was down in the canyon today handing out dog tickets for leashless pets. Thankfully my dog was on the leash when I ran across him. They did just finish doing interviews for the ranger position at Smith and they offered the job to someone. Dave said the guy was young and had experience elsewhere as a ranger. He also said the guy told him that he would give him three years at that park before looking for a promotion. It is too bad that to advance in the State Park system you have to transfer so nobody ever stays at a park very long.

Anybody know about the bolted route by Tunnel Falls on the way up the Mt Defiance trail? Looks like 11ish? Also wondering if anyone has explored the Wind Mountain area much and if there are any good routes there. Just always catches my eye as I'm zipping back and forth between Portland and Hood River. Thanks for any info.

Bolts we put in were on the variation start. Jim's original start was basically eliminated by a sport climb project 5.15? that was bolted back a number of years ago. The variation we did was about 30 feet left of the original line. The second pitch is where the route gets the x rating from. From the last piece of pro to the top is a 50+ foot runout on mediocre to loose rock.

No that is Tyler's other project... I'm trying to get him out there to finish that one too. I think I get the next pitch. I know of one person that took a big whipper on it so I'm looking forward to it.

Trip: Smith Rock - Air To Spare w/variation start 5.7 A3 X Date: 1/21/2010 Trip Report: A few weeks ago Tyler and I went out to Smith with the intention of aiding an absurd line of seams left of Scarface. The line overhangs about 30 feet in 100. To get into the seams Tyler started hooking right off the ground. He placed a bolt to keep his ass of the ground and then the nailing starts. The pitch took 27 #2 and #3 pecker placements and the occasional angle and LA. We placed just enough bolts to keep a gear ripping leader off the ground. After we started the route I got really sick for two weeks so we left a line fixed which at Smith attracts the wrong type of attention. Some yahoos had swung on the rope so much that they cut the sheath of the rope and the core strands were all exposed which made for an exciting ascent yesterday morning. When I got to about 3 feet away from the core shot, the sheath started to slide down the rope. At that point I had to reach up past the core shot and put my ascender on the rope and keep going from there a few feet to the belay. A few minutes of excitement for sure. Add that to the list of things I don't want to have to experience again. The second pitch was pretty exciting for me. It was straight forward nailing up a slabby seam to a ledge where you sink a good #3 camalot in a wierd groove. That is the last piece of the route. From there I was in free climbing land. I put on the shoes and started going for it. 5.7 climbing on halfway decent rock leads to an exciting exit downclimbing left into a chimney. I just kept expecting to find a bolt up there and I never did. Those guys had some balls. Tom Blust and Jim Anglin put up a killer line. tyler jugging, ryan at the belay (note: i think its kinda steep) belay meeting tyler on the left ryan on the right ryan starting to nail the second pitch where you join air to spare after 2 placements ryan launching into the free climbing up to the ledge above him to a long traverse to the left and into the hobbit hole

Looking for climbing partners in the Hood River area. I'm up for all types of rock/choss adventure. I have a lot of sport trad and aid experience mostly at Smith Rock but I'm game for whatever. I would love to help do development on new crags as well. I would also like to find or meet anyone who might have a home gym in the neighborhood. Thanks for any info.