Rainbows at the Rock

Back at Smith Rock in the late morning, we again made some sandwiches and headed out to climb. This time we went on a longer hike around to far side of smith rock. There's a shortcut that involves some steep hiking and exposed scrambling, but we decided to follow the base of the rock around the river to get a better view of all the climbing locations. Around on the other side, we picked out a few routes.

Monkey Face is in the upper left background.  

The view from the top of the approach.  

The approach from the river trail to get to the base of these climbs was steep and much less manicured than the approaches we had taken the previous day. After a bit of grunting and groaning and slipping and sliding we made it to the base. I climbed Sunset Slab, a classic 5.9, but Adrianne was still a little beat from the approach to attempt it. From our vantage at the base of our climbs, we could spy some climbers who had summitted Monkey Face, the famous 250 ft spire in the park. We then both climbed another 5.8 that was fun but not too tall. During this climb, some distant thunder rumbled. 

Weather moving in.

We headed back down to the river trail with an eye on the storm. As I attempted another climb, it started to rain, so Adrianne lowered me after three bolts. We found an overhang to keep dry during a thundershower. The rock had gotten wet and was much more slippery and susceptible to crumbling, so we waited a bit for things to dry out. After that, I collected my quickdraws with a combination of downclimbing and stick-clipping and then we headed out over the shortcut, Asterisk pass. 

Adrianne in front of Asterisk Pass.  

The shortcut was such a scramble over the rocks that the route was difficult to find from the trail. We passed it a few times in each direction, and then finally discerned some discoloration on the stone to climb up. As we were headed up the dicey scrambling section, big drops started falling. We made slow progress but made it safely over to the other side. Then we had a wet walk back to the car. A long downpour hit right before reaching the vehicle, so we took shelter in picnic area. On average, Smith Rock gets ¼ inch of rain in the entire month of July. Unfortunately it hit us. The wet rock was a safety concern for that day, so we returned our rented guidebook and hit the road a couple days earlier than we were hoping. Too little time at Smith, but we managed to scored some of the classics at our grade. We'll have to be back.   

At least the storm rewarded us with a rainbow.