Spring Break at Smith Rock

Our spring break trip to Smith Rock is coming to a close. Today we'll head for the Oregon coast and spend the next three days making our way home. We have cottages rented in Cannon Beach and the Olympic National Park and look forward to two hikes and some beach combing. We've never driven through the Olympic National Park, and we are interested in seeing the scenery. We've got our fingers crossed that it doesn't rain too much!

We've had a nice time here in Smith Rock. It wasn't a climbing trip for me because of my shoulder injury, but Elise did some routes and we enjoyed skiing, hiking and socializing with our friends. The main goal was to get away from Squamish and the daily grind, and I think we accomplished it.

Elise posing by the park sign. She insisted on climbing the sign every time we passed it and having me photograph her. We also did some bike riding practice in this parking lot. The training wheels are off and the process has begun. She is not riding on her own yet. Stay tuned!


Once again, we stayed at our friend Rob's house, which is a quaint rancher that's walking distance to the park and the climbing. Here's Elise with incredibly morning hair and face paint, doing a puzzle in Rob's living room.


The first day was sunny, but cold. We opted to do a big hike around the park, over Misery Ridge and around the Monkey Face. It took us 3 hours and Elise hiked the entire way on her own. She is definitely getting more capable.


Striking a pose under the Picnic Lunch wall near the start of the hike. She is really into hamming it up for the camera these days.


The stairs up Misery Ridge. This picture only shows a fraction of the entire climb.


View to the east from the summit of Misery Ridge.


She climbed a Juniper tree near the summit. The face paint is still intact.


Resting near the Monkey Face. It was very windy and we were glad to have warm clothing with us. I considered hiking in shorts, which would have been a BIG mistake.



The Monkey Face. If you look very closely, you can see Elise and I perched on the edge of the Diving Board, the rock that juts out toward the mouth of the monkey. I'm wearing blue.


Pam and Elise hiking down the gully beside the monkey face. Pam's knee is bothering her again (bursitis, we think), so she uses hiking poles for hilly walks.


A very foreshortened view of the Monkey Face with two hikers for scale.


Elise fooling around with a handful of dry grass at the base of the Monkey. In the background, you can see the Crooked River, which eventually flows into the Deschutes. I'm not sure what the bundle of grass was all about.


Looking back at the Monkey Face from the trail.



The Crooked River.


Getting Elise to pose with a nice smile becomes more and more difficult with each trip. I think she called this her "nun face" or something like that. Note the butterfly face paint.


I often have to trick her into smiling by saying something that makes her laugh.



The hiking trails in the park are extremely pleasant. Here we are rounding the Phoenix on our way back to the house. The path stayed close to the river and we saw an otter swimming downstream.



Burma Ridge behind Rob's house in evening light. This is ranch country.


We visited the neighbours, Les and Holly, again. Here is Elise feeding Mally. We came back a couple of days later for riding lessons (pics to come). I also got an impromptu lesson in making bullets. Welcome to the United States!


We climbed on two cloudy, windy days. Elise did well, despite the less-than-ideal conditions. Here she is on her first climb, Cinnamon Slab. The serrated cliff in the background is Ship Rock.


Next up was Bunny Face, a route name she got confused over, calling it "Rabbit Wall". Even she saw the humour in this mix-up and we all had a good laugh. She's wearing her new climbing shoes, La Sportiva "Stick Its".






We had one very pleasant day, and since we brought our skies, we opted to ski. This turned out to be a great decision because the conditions were absolutely perfect. We had blue skies and powder snow - we couldn't have asked for more. The ski area we visited was called Mt. Bachelor and it's a volcano in the Cascade chain. The views were great!

This is the first glimpse we had of the peak while driving up from Bend.


The have over 12 FEET of snow up there this year. The van is parked beside the snowbanks for perspective.


Here we all are at the top of the Sunrise Express.



Looking to the northwest from the summit chair.


Pam and Elise standing at the top Mt. Bachelor. The view is generally to the southeast.



The unload station at the top was totally covered in rime. The summits of these volcanoes get seriously scoured by wind. The are barren and very exposed.


Lunch in the lodge. Somebody is looking a little disheveled. Those are hot chocolate stains on here face.


The midmountain lodge. It kind of reminded me of the Paradise zone on Red Mountain, where I leared to ski. The runs were of similar character and the rime-pasted trees brought back memories.


The lift ticket system was interesting. Each time you lined up for a chairlift, you had to pass through a arch that scanned your ticket (no free rides here!). Since Elise was so short, we had to put the ticket on here helmet so the scanner wouldn't miss it.


Here she is skiing perfect packed powder on a blue run off the Sunrise Express. Her skiing is coming along very well. She can confidently snowplow down blue runs and is starting to get the hang of parallel turns. She seems to really enjoy it. We discoverd a gully-like trail (maybe a creek bed?) that wove through the trees and we skied it over and over again because she had so much fun.



The magic carpet was in a tunnel. Elise really wanted a ride to experience this interesting feature. It was kind of fun, actually.




After skiing, we drove back to Smith Rock and met up with Les and Holly for the horse ride. Elise is on Chief, the horse that bucked her last year. We were all more prepared this time and things went swimmingly. Holly led Elise around the yard in figure eights, and Elise eventually took the reighns and led Chief on here own. You couldn't wipe the smile off here face!







We spend our last evening having dinner with friends at the Terrebonne Depot, a great restaurant some friends of ours built out of an historic rail station. Elise said to me "I want to saty at Smith Rock - I dont' want to go home". I guess that means she had a good time. Mission accomplished!

Skiing Update - 2011

Winter is going by quickly and we are certainly making the most of a snowy year. My shoulder's not really improved, much to my great dismay, but I'm certainly enjoying doing a lot of skiing with Elise. She has improved in leaps and bounds from last year and we are already discussing a possible season pass at Whistler for next year (if we can afford it!). We have two weeks left until we head down to Smith Rock for a one-week break. I doubt I'll be able to do much climbing, but we are looking forward to a getaway and will bring our skis so we have options.

Elise and I did our first ski day to the top of Whistler about 2 weeks ago. Whistler is a huge mountain and this was a big jump up from Grouse and Mt. Seymour. We didn't start too early and I didn't plan for a huge day. Regardless, fatigue was inevitable. Here we are riding up the Creekside Gondola together first thing in the morning. The guy who took this picture was Swiss and almost fell out of the gondola door while focusing. Yikes!


One of the highlights of the day was a much-anticipated ride on the famous Peak to Peak gondola. This lift goes from the restaurant on Whistler across the Fitzsimmon's valley to Blackcomb. It's got the highest span of a lift in the world, higher than the CN tower! I'd promised Elise we'd ride it, and she would not take no for an answer.


Here she is, riding the Peak to Peak. Looking quite pleased, I must say.


On the other side at Blackcomb, and getting ready to bomb me with a chunk of snow. Throwing snow at Dad is always a fun time...


We were blessed with a gorgeous day. There was fresh snow and the sun was out. As you may have imagined, it was cold and Elise was very bundled up. Here she is poised to ski down the Horstman glacier from the very summit of Blackcomb (around 7,000 ft). I did not plan for this, but when we reached the summit of 7th Heaven, she exclaimed she wanted to ski the glacier, with great determination. I think she was mostly just excited at the idea of being ON a glacier. She did well and it turned out to be a highlight of the day.


Here she is having a slopeside snack break on Blackcomb. We just sat and enjoyed the winter sun.


She skied all the way to the valley at the end of the day (1 mile vertical drop). We broke up the journey with a stop at the Tree Fort on Whistler, which is a kids' playground complete with slides, snowcaves and bridges in the trees. She had fun, but the slides were a tad extreme.


Skiing down to the creekside base. She had to ski long stretches of intermediate (blue) terrain on the way down and did very well. She got compliments from a number of other skiers along the way.


A few days later, we went to Vancouver to attend Olivia's 9th birthday party. It was a skating party, and we all participated. Elise had never skated on proper skates before, so this was a new experience. She had lots of fun, but would not leave the security of the slider. Doesn't she look cute in her little white skates?


We've had lots of snow in Squamish. This was a morning of sledding at the Brackendale school with her friends Isabella and Kaian.


Last Thursday, I took her skiing on Cypress Bowl in West Vancouver. Again, we lucked out with a fabulous day. The ski was partially clear and the mountain had received over one foot of fresh snow in the past 24 hours. The best part was, it was deserted! We never waited in line and skied "fresh powder" on the sides of the run until noon. I really enjoyed the skiing this day. Cypress suffered terribly last year during the Olympics due to a lack of snow. This year it's buried! Murphy's Law, I guess.


This photo shows the fresh powder under the lift. There barely anyone on the lift in front of us and only one other skier in sight!


The bear in the lodge.


Getting serious about her french fries. This is a special ski day treat for her. Sometimes, I think she eats more ketchup than fries.


Self portrait in the new Cypress lodge, built for the Olympics. It's a beautiful building.


Feeding the ravens at the top of Cypress' newest quad chair. This was an unexpected treat.


The next day, we went skating again - this time at the Squamish arena. She'd had a great time at Olivia's party and was excited to do some more. Again, she used the supporting slider. Check out her new down parka! I'm jealous...


About 15 minutes into the skate, she turned to me and said, "Dad, I want to try it by myself". Who was I to say no? She "walked" across the ice (not really skating), but managed to learn how to balance on the blades, which was a good progression I think. She did lots on her own and by the end of the session felt more comfortable.


Here she is, about to fall.


At least she's smiling!


This past Sunday, we all went skiing on Whistler (Pam, Elise and I). The forecast was for sun, and we decided it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. Elise had a bit of a cold, and didn't seem to have quite the patience or spunk as on our first day at Whistler, but did well nonetheless. After a couple of warm-ups, we went up the Peak Chair, a very intimidating ride over cliffs and glaciers right to the top of the mountain. Here she is, posing like an explorer at the summit of some challenging peak! Truth be told, she was mad because the sun was bright and demanded to have here goggles back on shortly after this shot was taken.


Pam and Elise at the top of Whistler mountain. What a beautiful day! It's an incredible environment up there. No wonder it's considered world class. We need to utilise this amazing resource more in the future.


A highlight of the day, of course, was feeding the Whiskey Jack's both at the base of the Symphony Express and at the base of the Harmony Express. They are bold birds, and having the feed off the tops of our heads was really funny!




We met up with our friend Mardi and her daughter Neve for one run on Blackcomb. It was nice to see them and the kids enjoyed skiing together. We went to the Castle on Blackcomb, which is much like the Tree Fort on Whistler. Unfortunately, both kids got pretty shaken up on the slides, which were also a tad extreme. Elise hurt her ribs and Neve cried. I can't believe Elise skied all over Whistler and Blackcomb (to the top of each) and had her most damaging experience in the playground. It actually really knocked her off her stride. I ended up carrying her for part of the next run.


We decided the best thing to do was take a late day break in the lodge before skiing down. Who looks the most tired here? Turns out, it was a good idea, because Elise got a second wind, and we had a wonderfully, sunny, crowd-free run to the valley floor. Elise loves to take jumps (ride over bumps on the side of the run) and ski through little forest trails. The run down provided ample opportunity for both, and we had a great time. Thankfully, the day ended on a very positive note after the carnage at the Castle.


Pam is looking forward to her break, and I'm closing in on the completion of my latest book project, Bow Valley Sport Climbing. We'll post from Smith Rock. We hope you all are well.

Marc