I was always a soloist at heart, generally more than willing to solo anything up to 5.9, especially crack routes. One sunny weekend day at Smith Rock I managed to ropeless solo a variety of routes ranging from Moscow, Super Slab, to Moonshine Dihedral, and sometime later that day I gravitated over to the west side of the state park nearer to the Monkey Face rock pillar formation with the intended goal to make a fast dash up a long crack system on the far west side of the cliff -- on a route called West Face Variation (5.7) route.
So upward I embarked in my rock shoes, dancing effortlessly past the crux in fast time, cruising quickly and efficiently up the jam crack. This is gonna be a fast ascent with very easy climbing, I thought to myself.
But, just as I reached a large midway ledge, I suddenly heard a distinct rattle.
I paused in my tracks, frozen by the sound of the rattle, and instantly glanced straight across the flat ledge at the back side of the small ledge (that I had just arrived upon), only to find a rattlesnake warning me of its presence.
"Hmmm...how did you get up here Mr Rattlesnake!"
There was no way I was gonna get around this particular spot, so quickly, and quietly (and wisely), I opted to down climb the entire lower portion of the route, going back down the crack I had just climbed up, carefully reversing the crux moves, descending all the way back down to the ground, then packed up my gear and marched around to the popular Dihedrals zone.
Perhaps Smith Rock is not the most ideal place to solo after all....
