My daughter attended two seasons of rock climbing camp when she was 16 and 17 years old at Smith Rocks through Mt. Hood Summer Ski Camps. I flew up at the end of her camp do to some climbing with her and then take her home. As an older trad climber I hadn’t put Smith Rocks high on my list of places to go since it has a reputation for hard sport climbs, but I found it was a lot of fun. What isn’t to like about well-bolted straight up climbs with nice handholds (well, the climbs I did had nice handholds….).
I was surprised to discover that Smith Rocks is only 10 miles from Redmond airport – you can actually see Smith from the air as you approach. You could conceivably ride a bike from airport, although with climbing gear that doesn’t sound like fun. There are two FBOs and they both have rental cars on site, so I rented a car. Plus, I like the town of Bend so after climbing we drove to Bend to walk the streets and pick a place for dinner.
