Smith Rock State Park
Aug 19th, 2010 Posted in Fun Photos - Nature, Fun Things to Do | no comment »We took a small detour on our road trip to Bend this year and stopped to hike at Smith Rock State Park. What an amazingly, beautiful piece of nature.
Years ago we took an easy, flat hike along the bottom of the canyon, but somehow Brian convinced us to head up Misery Ridge for the grand tour of Smith Rock. Geez, that’s a brutal climb. I mean, who voluntarily climbs “Misery” Ridge. But, after some minor cursing and huffing and puffing, we were rewarded with gorgeous views. And seeing the crazy climbers from the top was priceless.
The hike took us about 3 hours with 3 kids (ages 13, 11 and 8), 1 mini-Schnauzer, frequent water breaks and some wading in the river. Bring lots of water, a camera and good shoes with traction. The trail is steep and going down takes some skill to keep from slipping. That said, we saw several people running the trail with those slip on glove/shoes. We followed their lead and found that a quick gallop down worked best and was way more fun. We all managed the well, though the Schnauzer kept diving under boulders for shade and was obviously sore the next day 🙂
