Howdy!
I mentioned last week that the BF and I went hiking at Smith Rock State park so I thought I would do an actual review and talk a little more about it.
Smith Rock state park is out near Bend, OR. Weather wise it was almost perfect, after many days of dark dreariness we entered the land of the sun! Bend gets a lot more sunlight than Portland and this particular park looks more like it belongs in Arizona if you ask me. It was probably about 70-75 degrees with sun and a few clouds so it was amazingly beautiful. Of course there was a storm rolling in and we hit the beginning of it but I’ll talk about that later.
It was a Friday morning and I happened to not have lab so we decided a hike farther away would be ok. We did get a little bit of a late start though, by the time we were up and ready, hit the grocery store for snacks and really got on the road it was about 10am.
It was just under a 3 hour drive for us so by the time we got there, got situated, bought a $5 parking pass and headed out it was about 1:15pm.
I took a few pictures of the area before we started. The surroundings were so unlike the area of Oregon we live in!
That is what we are about to hike up??!!!
It was an aptly named trail, at least the ups and downs were but I would say only about 1-1.5 of it was difficult. The rest was pretty flat.
Gotta get a nice picture before we get all sweaty and gross.
The view from the top was great, very pretty.
That is what we had just hiked up. There were actually quite a few stairs, it felt like I got a major step up workout hahaha
The information shop area place had a nice little map that was free that showed you all the trails.
We did Misery Ridge which was the most elevation wise but was only 4 miles. We would have added on a smaller hike but about half way through our 4 miles the wind started kicking up and the clouds started rolling in. We drove the rest of the way into Bend and had dinner at the Deschutes Brewery and restaurant. I had an amazing burger after all that hiking hahaha. I may have also had a beer sampler but being as I was tired and had worked out it only took 3.5 of the 6 to hit me so the BF finished the last 2.5 for me hahaha, I am so not a heavy drinker anymore.
On the way home the clouds really started rolling it and we even hit a little snow going up over the pass back to Portland. It was 34 degrees so the snow wasn’t sticking yet but it probably stuck later that night if it kept going.
Overall I really enjoyed this hike, I wish the clouds hadn’t rolled in so we could have hiked longer. There was only the one difficult part of the hike though going up and over the ridge, Brandon was a little bored the rest of the way and we even ran a little on all the flat parts. Maybe 3/4 of a mile to 1 mile. Smith rock state park is very big with rock climbers, there were A LOT of them, it was fun to watch them but terrifying to think of being up there. There is also mountain biking and on the flatter, rolling hills parts that could be fun.
As far as dogs go, they are allowed but sometimes Artemis pulls and I would have been terrified that she would have pulled me off balance and I would have fallen, there are some definite drop offs. Thankfully I did not bring her on this hike. Also I prefer to hike with her in less populated areas so I can let her off leash and she can go at her own pace.
Overall I enjoyed the hike but it is way to far of a drive for what we got out of it hike wise. I did very much enjoy myself though.
Until next time, have fun trailing the blonde…………
Trailing the blonde 