We bought the guidebook to Smith over a decade ago, and it’s been sat on the shelf at The Cottage in North Wales ever since. But today, we finally made good use of it! (Note: Typically, a brand new and updated guide got released at the start of the month, but hey-ho!).

The climbing was everything that we’d hoped it would be and happily justified travelling half way around the world to be here!

It was only 3°C and with a heavy frost when we left the house, so didn’t know how things would go, but once in the shelter of the valley and on the sunny side, we soon thawed out as we got the ropes out.

Even the walk to the climbs was amazing and our necks craned upwards on the short hike. There was a huge heron in the river and rather disconcerting was the presence of a stretcher and crutches at the base of the cliffs!

The climbing took a route or two to get used to the ‘pulling on pebbles’ style of movement on the rock – a kind of volcanic tuff.

The situation was dramatic to say the least! What a place! This is Clare cruising up our first route.

With limited time here and more routes than we’d ever be able to climb, we cherry picked the best one and only set off up 3 star routes!

After a few bolted climbs we did a multi pitch trad protected route, so that we could ‘top out’ and get the views from up high. The line was superb, with no issues about route finding!

Clare took over for the second, even more dramatic top pitch…

And at the top was a handy abseil station to get back down again.

After some lunch, we carried on climbing until the sun began to lower in the sky and the temperatures began to dip again. Amazing temperature differential as at lunch time we had t-shirts on!

All in all, an absolutely magic day and one that will be stored firmly in the memory banks! Travel to far out places has it’s ups and downs but the landscape is so different here that it’s impossible to not keep saying wow! (Oh and we also saw otters in the river and eagles overhead!).

Smith Rock Climbs:

– Easy Reader, 5.6***

– Lichen It, 5.8***

– Cinnamon Slab, 5.6*** (2 pitches)

– Helium Woman, 5.9***

– Bunny Face, 5.7***