Elevation Gain: Not Sure
Distance: < 6km
Total Time: 4ish hours
Date: July 4th, 2024
After several days in the Sierras, Brayden and I had more or less committed to spending the last part of our trip in Washington Pass to climb a few different alpine routes. Now the only thing standing between us and Washington Pass was a nearly 17 hour drive. There’s no way we’re going to do that in one sitting, so how should we break the trip up? I spent some time scouting out options along the way, but Brayden picked the ultimate winner. A drive by foray into Smith Rock. Specifically to climb a summit pinnacle called Monkey Face. It’s ultra famous around the area, but I’d never been to Smith Rock and it looked cool as hell. There are several routes, but the Pioneer Route at 5.7 A0 seemed the best fit for how much time we had. A quick bit of recon seemed to indicate a straight forward bolted line with one section of bolt ladders and should be doable in 2-3 hours. With our objective picked out we left the air conditioned comfort of coffee shop in Bishop, CA and made one pit stop for a hostel shower and then hit the road.
Somewhere near middle of nowhere Oregon, Brayden spotted a tennis court and immediately pulled over. He said we’re going to play a quick match of tennis and I initially laughed it off as a joke. It was too my surprise then when he produced two tennis rackets and a set of balls from his reconfigured trunk. Next thing I knew we were lobbing tennis balls under the fading evening light. Somehow the most absurd part of our trip was not crazy over hanging granite ridge lines or ultra exposed 5th class moves, no it was an impromptu match of tennis in the middle of Oregon. I lost, but damn it was a blast.
After our brief tournament we finished up the drive and camped just south of Bend, Oregon at a free camp site. On the following day we made the rest of the drive to Smith Rock and pulled into the main lot. One of the site volunteers came by to check our ticket, realized we didn’t have one, then picked up a still valid one left on the ground for us to use instead. Excellent hospitality to say the least. We racked up quick draws and rope; fast and easy. Now we headed down the main trail and did a short scramble up and over Astericks Pass. Brayden lead a quick pace in case there were impending crowds and we reached the west face in short order. Someone was already on the wall, but it turned out this was the 5.8 trad route and they were only going to the half way point. We pressed on around the east side and located the correct start.
Brayden was going to lead the bolt ladder, so to line things up he took the first pitch which was mostly a low-5th/4th class pitch up slabs. He setup shop in an alcove below a dihedral of sorts. We swapped leads and I pulled up on some loose flakes climbing several meters before realizing there’s no bolts, just trad protection. Well we didn’t bring any gear, so climb on I must and I topped out of the dihedral and traversed out onto the opposing face. Another few moves and I spotted a manky old piton. With nothing else to clip, I put a quick draw on that and then climbed further up to one loose bolt before finishing up the rest of the climb. The moves weren’t hard, but I was not expecting an already bolted/established trade route to have garbage protection as the only option 3/4ths of the way through the pitch. At least the anchor was solid.
Now Brayden came up and it he set about dispatching with the bolt ladder. I watched as he made quick work through 20 some bolts finishing with an arching traverse into a large cave at the top. Prior to this Brayden had given me a crash course on ascending a line, aid style. I set out into the unknown and quickly realized a problem. I had made the distance between where I could travel the ascender up the line too short and now every bump up the rope was high effort-low reward. Half way up I fixed my setup and then reached the first real crux. The traversing line meant my rope was weighted against the quick draw and a release of the rope would make for a great swing into open space. I had to do a careful dance of pas’ing in, manoeuvring the rope out of the draw, unclipping and so on. The swings were inevitable though. Brayden had kindly thought about not prematurely ending my life and padded the lip of the cave with his backpack. After a massive workout I finally reached the lip and lugged myself unceremoniously up to safety.
I caught my breath for a minute, while Brayden set up the anchor for the next pitch. This part was supposed to be a heart stopped as per mountain project. You must exit the cave over an ultra exposed section of face and move about 25ft up to the next belay. It was my pitch next, so I geared up and stepped out. Immediately above me was a bolt, to my relief. From there the moves weren’t all that hard but I was definitely still over gripping the shit out of the holds. I briefly went the wrong way following some other line but traversed back to the next anchors and then belayed Brayden up.
Finally, Brayden lead one short unprotected pitch through a notch and up some 4th class terrain to the last anchor. We both walked to the summit from there and I have to say the views were top notch. I had not seen the east side of the Cascade Volcanic Belt before and it was amazing from this perspective. Afterwards we walked down to the anchor and did one short rappel to previous anchor before rigging a 60m rappel with a tag line as the last. Brayden went first and then I followed up. I was not prepared for the massive free hanging rappel to the bottom and it was definitely a highlight of the whole route. It’s hard to put in words how fun it is, you just have to go do it.
At the base we coiled everything up and made our exit. This 2-3 hour plan had transformed into a bit of a longer affair and now we’d be facing no sleep for Washington Pass, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice.
This route is apparently ultra popular so I think we got lucky to have it to ourselves. The climbing is not all the inspiring, but it’s still a cool line and the exposed 3rd pitch + rappel make the whole affair worthwhile.