A Trip to America’s Historical Sport Climbing Venue
The road between climbing destinations passes along the quietest stretches of North America. Hours and days are spent putting along and into the quiet corners of the landscape. After a day’s drive through B.C.’s lake country the muted tones of eastern Washington’s Scablands paint a formidable scene and leave much wanting in the way of climbing dreams. Still another 160 kilometres to Smith Rocks and the continued scarcity of climbing escarpments makes it difficult to believe that one of North America’s premier climbing destinations can be found among the mounds of dirt and dust that stretch to the north, south and east.
Industrial farms, scorched f ields and rolling hills of cover crops weaken my climbing spirit. As the road stretches, I focus on the silence between hour-long podcasts of
and the cbc’s Eventually, a thin line of f inlike walls breaks the tan-coloured monotony, reawakening the senses to the natural world. A f lood of memories and imaginings chase me closer towards the welded tuff walls of crimps, pockets, buckets and jugs that have filled many climbers’ dreams. The “drive-thru” town of Terrebonne, Or., approaches and an entirely different world is revealed.