Climbing trip (with Lenny again) to Smith Rock

As we headed South East out of Portland, we broke through the Cascades, veering just South of Mt. Hood, and all of the sudden Oregon became a dry, sunny, and very flat place.  Eventually we veered off the highway and out of nowhere rose this giant monument of rock, carved out by the river that runs below it like a mote, smattered with climbers too small to see in the photo below.

View of the area from the parking lot.

To get to the climbing areas you had to go a good ways downhill, cross the river that you can see here, and then climb back up to get to foot of the rocks.

Seth rigging up our first climb on the first day... you can see him at the top, but he almost blends into the rock.

Lenny climbing on the first day.

Me on belay.

Seth leading a climb on our second day.  To lead means to set protection as you climb up; these rocks are bolted along the routes so that you clip your rope into the bolts as you go.  When he got to the top, Seth would then attach the rope to anchors so that Lenny and I could climb the route after him.

The view from the bottom of this route.

Me climbing day two.

We moved over to another area with really cool rock features- never climbed on anything like this before.

Seth setting up the first climb on day three

Lenny climbing; also, if you look close, you can see Seth sitting in a nice little groove and belaying from up top.

The area we climbed on the third day was across the river from the other climbing we did, and from here you can see the first area the we climbed the day before.  It's the slabby (least vertical) section right in the center of the photo.

As we were about to leave to head back home we found this beautiful slot canyon not far from the parking area which we explored the inside of a little bit.  It was 15-20 ft deep and 2-3 ft wide most places, with huge boulders piled and wedged in a few places that made it easy to climb in and out.