Smith Rock State Park

The Rocks

The most striking features of Smith Rock are the large rock formations that rise out of the ground. The park is a famous destination for rock climbers who can be seen scaling the cliff faces around the park.

Monkey Face at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon

Ground Zero

From this angle, it’s pretty clear where the rock formation Monkey Face gets its name — from other vantage points the rock loses its simian appearance. The picture is taken from the River Trail, which loops up onto the rocks to the right of Monkey Face. It’s a nice way to get to the top if, like me, you’re scared of heights and wouldn’t scale the cliff face if your life depended on it.

Caution is advised in this area because, although I have no definitive proof, when it all goes down I’m pretty sure this will be ground zero when the earth becomes the planet of the apes.

Mule Deer

A Mule’s Ears

Between the heat and the elevation changes and hiking all day, I was feeling pretty beat as I walked the River Trail for the second time. As the sun got low in the sky, I came across this gentle doe grazing on the hillside and the sight provided a little lift to my tired legs, at least until I got to the steep hike up to the top of the rock wall and my calves started remembering the first hike up.

Mule deer can be seen pretty easily in the early and late hours at the park, they tend to stay down by the Crooked River between the rock walls. A characteristic mule deer share with mules themselves are their large, twitchy ears. The ears can be moved independently as seen here.

Western Fence Lizard

Climber

I’m not a rock climber myself, but I enjoy watching both the two-legged and four-legged variety at Smith Rock. I found this male on an old log in the higher elevations at the park. You can find the little guys everywhere from the valley floor to the rocks along the cliff faces to the top of the rock formations. A telephoto lens was helpful, as they didn’t like a close approach and they scamper along the rocks a lot more quickly than I do.

A male western fence lizard sunbathes on a rock at Smith Rock State Park

A Rock, Just Not Smith Rock

A male western fence lizard sunbathes on the top of a rock (one of the many, many rocks) at Smith Rock. While both males and females have blue patches in their midsection, the male also has a blue patch under the chin.

In addition to being able to scamper quickly along horizontal and vertical rock formations, fence lizards excel at rapidly rotating around trees and wooden fences. As you can see from this picture, the five toes of every foot have little claws at the end, just the thing for holding onto the far side of a tree when predators or photographers come calling.