Volunteers Attend Stewardship Event at Smith Rock

Local organization, Smith Rock Group, held its annual Smith Rock Spring Thing event on Sat., April 26, inviting locals to volunteer and help preserve and clean up the highly trafficked park north of Redmond. About 350 people gathered at Smith Rock State Park, participating in a range of projects and activities, including trail maintenance and habitat restoration.

Volunteers worked alongside park staff and other organizations to tackle 25 projects that help protect and conserve the park, according to Dustin Ebel, president of Smith Rock Group, and owner of Redpoint Climbing, Coffee and Taps.

The most notable, according to Ebel, were several projects on Misery Ridge, a .68-mile trail to the summit.

“This year we did a lot. We had about 70 people working on various aspects of Misery Ridge, trying to keep it safe because there’s been a lot of damage to the trail over the last few years due to users as well as weather,” Ebel told the Source.

Volunteers also added steps to various trails, to help prevent slips and falls.
In addition to working on projects, the Spring Thing also featured a celebration following the day of volunteering. The event had 12 vendor booths and food and beverages, even offering a specific beer called the “Spring Thing,” brewed by Initiative Brewing.

“It’s fun because it’s not just, ‘come out and volunteer.’ We turn it into a community celebration,” Ebel said.

Smith Rock State Park is within 15 minutes of downtown Redmond, offering views of river canyons and miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. The park is a large attraction for rock climbers, offering thousands of different climbs throughout the park. Sightseers may also find a variety of high desert animals, including golden eagles, prairie falcons, river otters and more.

According to Ebel, the event pulls people from all over the western U.S. to participate in the day of park stewardship. The event had people of all ages, from three years old to 80.

“We have so many different people throughout the West Coast that care, and they’re not just climbers. We have hikers, we have birders, we have mountain bikers and a bunch of people where it was their first time to the park ever,” he said.

Smith Rock Group is a volunteering nonprofit that was established in 1993 due to the influx of visitors to the state park, coming from its notoriety in the global climbing community. In response to that increase, the group also created the Spring Thing.

“Thirty-two years later, the park is seeing well over 1 million visitors a year, and our mission is the exact same; to make sure that we, as climbers, have a positive impact on the park…so that all visitors can come to the park and recreate in the beautiful place that we all have here in our backyard.”

According to Ebel, Spring Thing is the largest and longest-running climber-led park clean up event in the United States. Since the start, volunteers have put in over 30,000 hours of work at the park.

“It’s really special because a lot of communities have people who care, but they don’t show up the way that our community does for Central Oregon, and specifically for Smith Rock,” Ebel said.