I didn’t set out to climb Smith Rock.
Oh, not the anchored-to-the-wall-like-a-spider-with-pitons-and-belays kind of climbing (for which Smith Rock is Oregon’s Mecca). I’m talking hiking an exposed trail to the 600-foot summit (3200 feet total elevation) of this volcanic buttress that towers above Central Oregon’s high desert.
The climbing hike was hubby's idea.
Mine was to keep to the canyon floor, following the Crooked River to an iconic spire known as Monkey Face before turning back the way we'd come.
Instead, we found ourselves taking the Mesa Verde Trail (just for a bit, I told myself) up to the junction for Misery Ridge.
No further, please...
Sure, I’d hiked above 12,000 feet in the Rockies, but none of those trails involved potential free falls into the abyss.
Misery Ridge was infamously steep, all loose dirt and rocky scree that my worn-down-to-zero-tread Nikes would have no traction on. And weren't there sheer drops up there? This WAS, after all, a ginormous rock we were headed up.
I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this!
Sure, you can, hubby encouraged me.
So up we went in our bad shoes with our insufficient water supply and lack of sunscreen, my brain cycling my favorite give-me-strength Bible verse on endless repeat. It was tough, it was hot, the footing scrabbly, and those drops (while not so threatening as I'd imagined) were closer than I liked, and—WOW, look at the sport climbers perched on the vertical wall of Monkey Face!
And that view through the crack to the plain below—incredible!
Topping out onto the summit—staring across the gorge to the pinnacles of the West Side Crags and the Cascade Mountains beyond—was my reward for every miserable step getting up there. And in that moment, when sweat and fear and screaming muscles ghosted into nothingness, I was blown away by the panorama I could never have seen from below.
Smith Rock conquered. A win in every way. Bragging rights, the whole nine yards.
Though the descent down the opposing face (much of it done scootching along on my backside) was more heart-ramping than the ascent.
Not for Ed, apparently.
Still… I could do this—I did do it—and got the pics to show for it!
Writing SEE ME AS I AM has been the most challenging undertaking of my life, strewn with misery all its own. Writing, rewriting, repeat. Diving into the query trenches—rejections, rejections, more rejections. Additional rewrites, edits, more querying, no thank yous.
Nobody wants this book!
And then… a contract from a publisher—that jaw-dropping view from the top!
Followed by a descent into deadlines, still more edits, last minute changes. And finally... the finish line! My book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble Online, in my local bookstore and my library system.
In my hands!
I’m so grateful to my point-man husband for getting me up the Misery Ridge Trail and onto the summit of Smith Rock! What I would have missed had I wussed out like I wanted to!
And what I would have lost had I called it quits along the brutal path to publication.
Keep to the road less traveled. The accomplishment will be worth the journey!
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