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| Smith Rock |
We packed up our campsite at Allingham the morning of June 3rd, made a brief stop to find some waterfalls on the Metolius (we didn't find any), and headed to Bend, Oregon to stop at a friend's house for showers and laundry. Even though we had only been four days without running water, some sweaty, dusty work had taken place during that time, and cleaning up was a welcome change.
Our family friend Shannon, newly-moved to Bend, was eager to show us around. We stopped for bagels, then headed out to Steelhead Falls north of town. A short hike took us down into a small but breathtaking canyon with the Deschutes River running through, plunging into a waterfall with golden flowers all around. We explored the area for a while, feeling like we were in the middle of a wilderness even though we weren't far from town.
Next we took a trip over to Smith Rock, which turned out to be a series of towering pinnacles of reddish volcanic rock, on the scale of something you'd see in a national park in Utah. Zach and I ended up doing a three-mile hike (called "Misery Ridge Loop") down into a canyon, up onto the pinnacles (with some dizzying drops alongside), around the side to a huge feature named Monkey Face (where we saw rock-climbers tackling the difficult angles), and down and back through the canyon along the river. It was easy to see why this site draws rock-climbers from all over the globe.
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| You could see the Three Sisters, Broken Top, and Bachelor from the hike |
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| Side view of Monkey Face, a 350-foot spire. Even the profile looks like a monkey! |
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| Front view of Monkey Face. I think that's Mount Jefferson in the background. |
It was only in the high 80s, but the heat combined with the bright sunlight and my lack of sunglasses left me with a searing headache for the rest of the day. Through a fog I remember the rest: saying goodbye to Shannon, driving through trees, pulling up at our campsite near Lava Lake, instantly getting swarmed by scores of mosquitoes, being thankful we'd brought our head-nets, sitting in the chair in pain while Zach and Gary set up camp. I was disappointed to be feeling so terrible, but I still felt like the hike around Smith Rock had been worth it.
We had eggs and sausage for dinner that night, which I wolfed down, then promptly crawled into bed. The campground was eerily silent after camping near the Metolius River. I was soon asleep, hoping that the headache would be gone by tomorrow.
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| Lava Lake, with South Sister and Mount Bachelor prominent |
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