Smith Rock State Park
Smith Rock State Park
This afternoon Brian, Lisa, Cathy, and I drove up to Smith Rock State Park. If you happen to be in the Bend area in Central Oregon, I highly recommend this park. This is especially true if, like us, you live on the east coast and enjoy scenery very different to what you’re used to. One a really hot, sunny day it might be oppressively hot, with all the exposed rock soaking up the sun’s warmth and radiating that back out, but it was quite cool today and that wasn’t a problem.
There were quite a few people there but it’s a pretty large place and most of them are climbing, so on the trails we saw fewer people than we might have expected. We also didn’t spend as much time there as we might have, since we didn’t arrive until almost 2:30 PM. It was a very clear day and the sky was a deep blue. The colors of the rocks, the green along the Crooked River, and the blue in the sky was a really great combination. If we were to come back to Bend, I think I’d plan a full day here, starting early in the morning and bringing a picnic lunch. I’d also want to hike up to the top of the rocks in at least one place. But that was more than we had time for on this visit. Still, I don’t regret what we got to do in the least.
