Smith Rock Detour 2009

Trip: Smith Rock Detour - Smith Rock Oregon

Date: 9/19/2009

Trip Report:
The Smith Rock Detour is an EVENT not to be missed.
I had the time of my life. Thank you Climb Max Mountaineering for putting together this unique event. You all did a fantastic job.
I headed down on Friday night and split gas with someone to manage expenses. For the price of registration, the Smith Rock Detour was so way worth it.

The Self Rescue Clinic was awesome. Our instructor from Timberline Mountain Guides Ben Randall was very knowledgeable and was clear and had great ways of communicating the voluminous amount of information. Escaping the belay, setting up hauling systems and transferring a load from one system to another were the topics covered. Knots, preventative measures, pick off were also covered.

Ben would show us what to do and why. His demonstrations and explanations of the various systems were followed by hands on practice. Our team of three set out to build a 5 to 1 hauling system and ended up with an 18 to 1. Helpful if you are going to bring your car up to the belay to listen to tunes. Ben assisted us on how to build the 5 to 1 correctly. We all had a blast. After 5 hours of instruction I had info leaking out of my ears. Thumbs up to Timberline Mountain Guides.

After all that I need to go climb. Two of the guys from the clinic jumped on a couple of routes and then it was on to dinner and hanging out with all the folks. Climbers are the most awesome bunch of folks to hang with.

Then it was the Reel Rock Film Tour. WOW. It is a must see. Alex Honnold's solo of Half Dome was way off the sick scale. I shook my head in utter amazement. The assents by the North Face team and Chris Sharma were awe inspiring.

Breakfast was great and then some more climbing. My partner led The Outsiders 5.9 At one point he said hey there is a birds egg perched on the ledge in this Hueco. It was further in yesterday. Somebody's rope is going to knock this off and make a mess. It is cracked though. So after finishing it I climbed up, and there it was a little egg. I climbed past and on the way down I thought I would remove the objective danger. And I as I started to lift the egg off the mother pigeon that was hiding in the hole almost peck my finger off. I sure was glad I didn't let go of my repel line. I dropped the egg and had to yell EGGGGG! Everyone ran away and the egg smacked the ground and my partner yelled "Hey the baby bird just flew away out of the egg after it hit the ground." Everyone said no way. He said was way. We didn't believe him. Man the mother bird was pissed off cause the next guy that went up yelled after the bird attached him when he tried to grab a handhold. The egg was cracked so I think the mother was pushing it out of her nest. I was just trying to make sure the muck didn't end up in some girls hair. Bad hair day at Smith. Not fun.

Then it was on to the heinous start of 9 Gallon Buckets.
I struggled for 15 mins. trying to get up on it. I then used the old stand on your helmet trick taught to me by an inspired climber trying to get on the Surf Board on Ancient Art at Fischer Towers Utah. I had always wanted to try that. It worked well enough to get me to the big Hueco on the next route to the right. Then I had to traverse over to Nine Gallon Buckets. Totally cheated and only made it to the first anchor. Dismal performance.
I was told that the start now is something like 5.11. It is definitely mean and hard. I guess I will have to get meaner or lighter. Lighter probably. Maybe harder.

The weekend was a grand adventure with benefits to be had from the new climbing partners I met, the added knowledge from the clinic, and the Reel Rock Film Tour are just the highlights.
The Smith Rock Detour is now going to be on the list of must attend events from now on.

Plaidman