Smith Rock: Misery Ridge Trail

Today we decided to hike Smith Rock. You may remember seeing Smith Rock on a previous post but this time we hiked the entire loop. We started out hiking down a steep descent into the canyon. We crossed the foot bridge and continued to the Misery Ridge trail head. The last time we attempted Smith Rock we were on our mountain bikes and took the river trail. The river trail is two miles long and we'll talk about it later in this post. The Misery Ridge trail is exactly like its name describes. It is 1 mile UP! no level ground just upwards and onwards. The summit hovers around 3,000 ft above sea level.

Once at the top the views are breath taking. A local was nice enough to snap a few shots of us at one of the lookouts.

We then continued uphill a little further towards a rock outcrop called Monkey Face. Its kind of a funny name for a rock but it does resemble an Ape's head. After we were through watching the climbers we descended down the other side of Smith Rock on the Mesa Verde Trail. This trail was a bit easier because the dirt was damp and gave our feet better traction.



















Along the Mesa Verde Trail I found a cave and had Keo take a picture of me peeking out.

After about 2/3 of a mile we switched onto the river trail. The river trail is for the most part flat with a few hills that meanders along the river. We stopped halfway to eat our lunch. We had packed a nice lunch consisting of a tuna fish and cucumber sandwich, edemame, sliced bell peppers and popcorn. 2 miles later we arrived at our starting point, crossed the foot bridge and hiked up to the parking lot. All in all this hike took us about 2 1/2 hours. A very good day spent in the high desert of Oregon.

The first picture here is from the river trail, the second is from the top of Smith Rock.