All the Pretty Rocks

I returned from my first real, honest-to-God, genuine rock-climbing trip last night. My good buddy Nate Tack took me out to Smith Rock. We arrived on Sunday afternoon, pitched camp quickly and then hiked over to rock faces to run a route or two prior to sunset. Nate ran up Cinnamon Slab on a lead climb and threw down a top-of-route belay for me. I performed a gully scramble to about the two thirds point of the route and then struggled up the route proper rest of the way.

Nate had been talking to two guys up there who were waiting to rappel down (they had climbed some of the backside routes and then scrambled over Asterisk Pass). We rappelled down and strolled over to Five Gallon Buckets. Nate topped out the route in short order and then daylight started failing quickly. We admired the purple clouds and rock faces to the south of us brightly lit by the setting sun. Then we hightailed it back to camp

Yesterday (Monday 6/19) we headed back out to the wall and started looking for easier routes (Nate was paying deference to my limited climbing skills). We skipped Five Gallon Buckets because a couple of climbers had already staked it out. We ran up a route named Purple Headed Warrior (according to the climbers next to us on "Phone Call from Satan"). Then Nate ran up another route that I don't have the name for (it's the second route to the left of Purple Headed Warrior), and it was "spicy" enough that I took a pass on the climb. He descended and we continued to the left and staked out a route that Nate swore started "kind of hard, but then gets real easy.

Never believe Nate.
He's a liar.

After he top-roped the route for me, I spent a long time struggling with the first twenty feet of the route. "Kind of hard" does not bear any resemblance to that section of rock face; much like "kind of pretty" doesn't descride Angelina Jolie very well. Once past the nasty start, the route did ease up and provide lots of positive holds. I finished the route, rested briefly at the top, dropped down to the ground on rappel and then we started looking for a good lunch spot.

I'll finish the trip report in a little while. Wedding prearations await my non-leisure.