1859 Sept | Oct 2012_opt

The Piton Pioneers
While there’s no record of prehistoric inhabitants and early settlers making ascents
of its walls, Smith Rock’s first recorded climb in the area was made by Central
Oregon resident Johnny Bissell in 1935. Others followed. In the mid-'40s, Portlanders
Ross Petrie and Dave Pearson made some of Smith’s first difficult ascents.
But it wasn’t until the 1950s, when Jack Watts and brothers Jim and Jerry Ramsey,
a trio from the nearby town of Madras, and Gil and Vivian Staender from Portland
established climbing lines that brought national attention to this isolated area.
“My brother, Jerry, and Jack Watts had climbed some of the Cascade volcanoes,
and the three of us got curious about rock climbing,” says Jim Ramsey, now 80. “It
looked like a cool thing to do.”
At the same time, in Europe, climbing steep technical rock and ice routes in the
Alps was gaining favor over traditional peak-bagging on easier terrain.
With hemp ropes, metal pitons and hammers to pound them into the rock—and
using footwear ranging from hiking boots to sneakers—the Madras trio tramped
off to Smith Rock with some ideas but little clue about what their exploration would
bring. Mountaineering had been around as long as people and mountains have intersected,
but climbing vertical and even overhanging slabs, was in its infancy. “It
was very rare to see anyone else at Smith Rock, least of all climbers, and it was a huge
deal if we found a piton in the rock,” Ramsey recalls. “Frankly, we climbed a lot of really
rotten rock because we were so interested in getting to summits.”
Watts and the Ramsey brothers (together or with other partners) put up first ascents
such as Asterisk, Platform, Arrowpoint, Cave Route on Brogan Spire, Diagonal
Crack on Opposum, Inside Corner and East Chimney, among others. They gave
many formations names such as Asterisk, Asterisk Pass and Brogan Spire—names
that live on today. And while they didn’t leave anything behind to mark their summit
ascents, the Staenders did.
In the late 1950s, husband and wife, Gil and Vivian Staender, made regular treks
from their Portland home to climb in Smith Rock’s Pinnacles area. “In those days,
we preferred to climb pinnacles and spires rather than big walls,” recalls Gil, now 82.
And climb they did, always leaving behind a summit register on one of their
many routes. “I remember getting a call from Jim Ramsey after he found one of our
registers, and we did a few climbs with him,” says Gil.
The Staenders made many courageous ascents, but the route most associated
with their name in Smith Rock climbing history is the first successful ascent of
Monkey Face on January 1, 1960.
Vivian Staender made the first ascent that cold January day with college students
Jim Fraser and Dave Bohn, both of whom had only enough time to make the climb
during their Christmas break from their studies at Oregon State University and the
University of Oregon respectively.
“The boys bivouacked in the cave that forms the monkey’s mouth and were shivering
by the time Viv climbed up to join them early the next morning," Gil Staender
says. "They made the summit push and all succeeded." Vivian died in 1997.
In the spring of 2012, another relic of Smith’s first climbers surfaced. A Bend family
on a hike in the Pinnacles area of Smith Rock stumbled onto an old yellow film
canister. Opening it, they found a climbing register for Gunsight Rock dated September
21, 1958. Its first entry read: “Gil and Viv Staender ascended the main pinnacle
by ladder. Then, one piton and up from the west.”
Today, the Staender name lives on at Smith Rock State Park in Staender Ridge,
a group of pinnacles that include Adit Rock, Control Tower, Independence Tower,
the Mole, Bette's Needles, Flattop and Staender Summit.
Alan Watts on an early ascent of Close
Shave on Monkey Face at Smith Rock.
Monkey Face gets its name from the
upper part of this singular, stand-alone
pillar that looks like a monkeys face.
photo courtesy of Mike Volk