Escaping the deluge in Portland, several dozen Catlin Gabel students took a ride over the great mountain to the rock climbing Mecca that is Smith Rock State Park.  The sun shone almost all day Saturday as the students learned the basics of rock climbing and then tried their luck at some challenging problems.  For dinner that night the group of 47 piled into a legendary (one out of five stars) Mexican restaurant in Redmond.  Somehow they managed to accomodate the crowd and serve us all some pretty good food. We headed over to the BLM Grasslands to set up our tents.   During the night the rains came, some students got wet, most stayed dry. 

Sunday morning saw some wild showers and then a lot of sun while we waited for the battery on the bus to be recharged.  No problem there.  Once at Smith we hiked down to the climbs in the full sun, only to have some showers pass through once we were on the actual climbs.  Oh well.  Back on the bus for the ride home and a return just before 6:00 pm.