Smith Rock State Park
Interesting facts
- Seen from one angle, the summit block of the 350-ft Monkey Face spire looks strikingly like the face of a primate, complete with an open mouth.
- Highliners string slacklines from a nearby outcrop called the Diving Board across to the mouth of Monkey Face.
- The Picnic Lunch Wall, usually the first cliff visitors see, rises about 700 ft above the trail.
- The Red Wall takes its red-to-purple hue from iron in the rock, setting it apart from the paler welded tuff elsewhere in the park.
- In the Lower Gorge climbers move from the park's tuff onto columns of basalt, the younger lava that capped the older rock.
- Climber Beth Rodden made the first ascent of The Optimist, graded 5.14b, on Koala Rock in the park's Marsupials area.
- River otters and beavers live along the Crooked River in the park, while prairie falcons and golden eagles nest on the cliffs.
- The cliffs have appeared on screen in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), The Postman (1997) and Wild (2014).
- The earliest known story of the name appeared in an Albany, Oregon, newspaper in 1867, which credited John Smith with discovering the rock.
Why it is worth it
Smith Rock is a wall of orange and ochre volcanic rock rising about 600 ft (180 m) straight out of a tight bend of the Crooked River in the high desert of central Oregon. Its cliffs, spires and ridges, with the river looping at their feet, are protected in Smith Rock State Park, a park of 641 acres assembled between 1960 and 1975 through purchases and gifts of land from the city of Redmond and from Harry and Diane Kem.
The rock tells the story of a violent volcanic past. Around 30 million years ago the ground here collapsed into an emptying magma chamber, forming the Crooked River caldera, which then filled with the debris of the eruption — ash and rock fragments that solidified into rhyolite tuff. About 500,000 years ago fresh basalt lava flowed over the older tuff, and the Crooked River has since cut down through both, exposing the pale, welded tuff that now forms the cliffs. The ridge of Smith Rock reaches about 3,200 ft (975 m), some 600 ft above the river. Two stories compete to explain the name: one links it to John Smith, a Linn County sheriff and state legislator of the 1850s and 1860s, the other to a soldier named Smith who is said to have fallen to his death from the rock in 1863.
Smith Rock is known as the birthplace of modern American sport climbing. In 1983 Alan Watts brought the ethics of sport climbing to its walls, and the first route in the country graded 5.14 was climbed here. Between 1992 and 2009 some 500 new routes were added, and by 2010 the park had more than 1,800. Its most famous landmark is Monkey Face, a 350-ft (107 m) free-standing spire, while the route Just Do It (5.14c) remains one of its celebrated testpieces.
Getting there
The park lies just outside Terrebonne, a small community on US Route 97 about 6 miles north of Redmond and 24 miles north of Bend. Redmond is about 11 km away in a straight line, and Redmond's Roberts Field (RDM) about 13 km.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Smith Rock State Park is a state park located in central Oregon's High Desert near the communities of Redmond and Terrebonne. The day-use area of the park is open daily from dawn to dusk. The park also has a camping area as well that accommodates tent camping only. Its sheer cliffs of tuff and basalt are ideal for rock climbing of all difficulty levels. Smith Rock is generally considered the birthplace of modern American sport climbing, and is host to cutting-edge climbing routes. It is popular for sport climbing, traditional climbing, multi-pitch climbing, and bouldering.
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