Such a good birthday weekend. Dev and I took Friday off from work. Dev and Sue and I went to Smith Rock in central Oregon for some rock climbing. Sue led up lots of pitches so that Dev and I could climb. Dev hopped on some 5.7 routes and did extraordinarily well for her fifth ever climbing trip. The weather didn't cooperate with our plans very well; an hour after we to to the crag, rain and snow pelt down or about 20 minutes. We looked out west towards the Phoenix wall and saw snow and rain being blown into our side of the crag by a huge wind. The precipitation stopped, but the wind stayed around. The rain and snow hadn't lasted long enough to soak any gear or make the rock unsafe. So we kept climbing and had a great time, if a slightly chilly one.
While climbing the Peanut we met a climber named Harrison out of the Bay Area in California who was in Smith Rock for his "annual pilgrimage." We chatted and climbed. He raced up the 5.10a to my right on lead while I climbed a 5.9 on top rope. After several minutes of chatting and another move a little further down the wall, we lit out from the park to find sleeping quarters. Given the 26 degree temps projected for the night, we opted for a cheap motel in Redmond. $60 for 3 people and 2 dogs. Not a bad deal especially since the hotel was well maintained and reasonably clean.
The next morning saw us at the crag by 8 am. We hot-footed it out of the parking lot. Many groups of climbers were prepping their packs and organizing their gear in the parking lot. Since we had pre-packed out bags at the hotel room, we could jump the line and get down to the crag. We got on some popular routes pretty early on. Sue led up Cinnamon Slab and set the rope. Then we made Dev climb second. She raced up the 5.6 route with very little difficulty. We moved over to the Bunny Face area and started playing on the routes. A few minutes later Harrison and his crew showed up. We had a great time chatting with him and his friends and climbing. The weather stayed nice and we climbed to about 3 pm before we headed home. The last route (More Sandy than Kevin) stymied Sue for a while at the fourth bolt. We got a hand from climbers on a neighboring route to move the quickdraw from bolt 3 to bolt 4. Sue flashed up the route to finish it and the said I had to climb it and clean it.

5.10d/5.11a

Yikes.

I hung on the rope about 5 times while climbing the route. Shredded my fingertips. Climbed harder than I have ever climbed. And I managed to top out.

So

Awesome

After that monster route, we lit out for home. Got back to Portland about 7 and prepared for the next day; which I will talk about in my next post.