The night before our 2 day vacation began we made the short hour drive to Cedarville CA to eat dinner and use the internet at the Surprise Café (awesome place that everyone should visit if they are ever in the area.) But, being a Sunday night the Café was closed… however, they were nice enough to leave the wireless on, and a powercable running outside so we could sit on the porch and still get online. (Cedarville CA is a small town. Jan left her cell phone out on the porch there for 15 minutes while we went somewhere else, and it was still there when we got back…) So we looked up the phone numbers of some gear shops and climbing gyms in the general area of where we had heard there was climbing, then I got on the phone and started asking strangers questions. This is less weird than it sounds, and also extremely productive if you get a climber on the other end of the line. Climbers love to talk about climbing. And in general, are some of the friendliest people I know.
So I made a few fruitless phone calls, one where the phone must have been passed to about 5 people before someone informed me of a “climb” that was really just a rock scramble. We finally hit the jackpot when I called the Red Point gear shop in Bend Oregon. As soon as the person on the other end of the line said hello I knew that this would be an informative call… you can just tell sometimes. (The tone of voice, the laid back attitude, must be a climber.) I told them what kind of climbing Jan and I were looking for, and he proceeded to list off about 10 places around Bend (including Smith Rock of course). Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed, and when I pressed for more specifics he told me, “Well, I’m planning on going climbing tomorrow. I’ll give you my cell number so that if you and your friend decide to come up, you can just give me a call.” I happily agreed, and Josh and I met over the phone.
After a dinner across the street at the Country Hearth, Jan and I hopped into the Slugmobile, plugged in the iPod, put on some LCD Soundsystem, and began to rock out while we drove over the pass towards Alturas CA, then Klamath Falls OR, on towards Bend. After an unmeasured amount of time driving, we pulled off onto a national forest dirt road somewhere outside of Chemult Oregon. We found a nice campsite in the pines, set up the tent, (no fly, so we could star gaze), and settled in for the night. The next morning we awoke slightly later than bird time at 6 am, made some breakfast on the whisperlite, and were on the road again by 7 am. We arrived in Bend at 8 am, and attempted to visit the REI. Which was closed. So after waiting a bit, so as not to disturb our climbing contacts too early, I gave Josh a call. I told him where we were, and we made a plan to meet up in a few minutes.
Having a local show you the climbing spots is really the best way to go. Being the manager of the gear shop near Smith Rock, and a local climbing guru it seems, Josh showed us some sweet spots where we only saw about 6 other climbers the whole time. That is besides his brother and friend who also joined us. (Not that more climbers can’t be fun… but it is nice to not have to wait for anything that you want to try.) We got some great top roping in on some cracks, Jan learned how to set some trad gear, and I got a few more bruises and cuts. And that was the first day.
That evening Josh showed us a cool bouldering spot right along the Deschutes River that also had some great “tide pools” that you could soak in. Basically these pools were just areas of the river that were sheltered enough by the big boulders that the river was rushing over to slow it down so you could not be carried away by the current. Jan and I did some swimming, saw a Dipper, and then made our way back to the Slugmobile to drive to our camp for the night.
Because Jan and I are awesome when we do anything outside we had fresh Cod and grilled asparagus on the whisperlite for dinner. Yes, it is possible on a whisperlite. And it was delicious.
The next morning we woke up again, slightly later than bird time, and made our way back to the bouldering spot on the Deschutes by 9 am. We worked on a traverse for a while, then just bouldered around with Josh for a bit before we ate an early lunch, soaking our feet in the river, exchanged e-mails, and goodbyes, and made our way to the Bend public library for some internetting before heading back the 7 hour drive to Sheldon.
The drive back was quite eventful. The Slugmoblie hit 100,000 miles (so naturally I stopped the car, and made Jan take a picture), I interviewed for a job, and caught up with Kirsten. We also made it across the CA/ OR border with a cooler full of produce in the trunk. (Apparently the only thing you have to worry about at the random inspection stations is cherries and corn.) We made it back to Sheldon at about 10 pm… I think… I may have been slightly braindead at that point, hit the sack, and got up the next morning to veg our brains out. And that was vacation.
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