Smith Rock State Park
| Smith Rock State Park | |
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| Type | Public, state |
| Location | Deschutes County, Oregon |
| Nearest city | Redmond |
| Coordinates | 44°22′09″N 121°08′18″W / 44.3692875°N 121.1383676°WCoordinates: 44°22′09″N 121°08′18″W / 44.3692875°N 121.1383676°W |
| Area | 641 acres (259 ha) |
| Operated by | Oregon Parks and Recreation Department |
| Open | year round |
| Status | open |
| Official website | |
Smith Rock State Park is an American state park located in central Oregon's High Desert near the communities of Redmond and Terrebonne. Its sheer cliffs of tuff and basalt are ideal for rock climbing of all difficulty levels. Smith Rock is generally considered the birthplace of modern American sport climbing, and is host to cutting-edge climbing routes. It is popular for sport climbing, traditional climbing, multi-pitch climbing, and bouldering.
The geology of Smith Rocks is volcanic. It is made up of layers of recent basalt flows overlaying older Clarno ash and tuff formations. Approximately 30 million years ago, a large caldera was formed when overlying rock collapsed into an underground lava chamber. This created a huge amount of rock and ash debris that filled the caldera. That material solidified into rock, becoming Smith Rock tuff. Rhyolite flows intruded along faults in the Smith Rock Tuff. A half million years ago, basalt lava flows from nearby volcanoes covered the older tuff.
More recently, the Crooked River cut its way through the layers of rock to create today's geographic features. Smith Rock itself is a 3,200-foot (980 m)-high ridge (above sea level) with a sheer cliff-face overlooking a bend in the Crooked River (elev. 2600 ft), making the cliffs about 600 feet high.
The origin of the Smith Rock name is uncertain. One story, published the Albany States Rights Democrat in 1867, states that Smith Rock was named after John Smith, who was Linn County Sheriff and an Oregon state legislator in the 1850s and 1860s. The newspaper article credits Smith with "discovering" the rock. Another story claims the rock was named after a soldier named Smith who fell to his death from the rock in 1863 while his unit was camped nearby.
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Wikipedia