Greg Orton: Getting people climbing in Southern Oregon

A green ocean of Douglas fir trees rolls into the horizon. The right angles and straight lines of logging units add a geometric overlay to the chaos of tight ridges and steep slopes. Deep green squares of old-growth trees tower next to squares of barren clearcuts. Young carpets of third-growth trees fill the rectangles in between.

These are the working forests of Southern Oregon. In the center of a clearcut, high on a ridge, an 80-foot spine of volcanic rock juts into the sky. Nearby, behind a locked steel gate with faded yellow paint, is a line of cars with license plates from Oregon, California, Washington and Nevada.

On all sides of the rock formation are people tied into colorful ropes and dangling from the sides of the overhanging cliffs. Stainless steel hardware shines in the sun as laughter and shouts echo into the fir trees below.

And if it wasn’t for a man named Greg Orton, this rock formation — The Honeycombs — would be a quiet clearcut in the heart of Oregon’s privately owned forestlands.

In 2001, Orton published “Rock Climbing Southwest Oregon,” a guide to hundreds of climbing routes previously kept secret by a few local climbers. If you happen to run into Orton at one of the many areas listed in his book, he’ll be happy to spend his day walking you around, showing you all the best routes and talking at length about the area’s history.

What he won’t tell you is that the growing Southern Oregon climbing community exists because of him. Orton invested 30 years of free time finding, cleaning and equipping most of the cliffs in his book; it was he who started the nonprofit that got recreational access to the land most of the cliffs are on and he was the one that taught most of the area’s climbers to tie in to a climbing rope for the first time.

Despite a global pandemic and a historical wildfire season, the community that Orton founded continues to flourish.

Orton started climbing on the granite peaks in Northern California in his 20s. When a seasonal job for the U.S. Forest Service in Southern Oregon kept him on for the winter, he started searching his new home for climbable rock.

“It becomes addictive,” Orton said. “Because it’s the unknown. When you start, you don’t know if there’s a route there or not.”

Developing a climbing route — finding a rock formation, setting up anchors to clean the rock and drilling the protection bolts that make it climbable — wasn’t something he had a mentor in.

“We did everything wrong, basically. We never figured anyone was going to follow our routes.”

But then, people did. Orton’s development in Southern Oregon areas like the Callahan Mountains brought outside interest from climbers in nearby cities like Eugene. And with that interest, “a tone for doing things different,” Orton said. He and his climbing partner, Harold Hall, began installing modern stainless steel hardware, building trails and keeping a record of their routes.

They also began teaching locals how to climb. When asked to teach an outdoor rock climbing class for Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Orton said yes. For more than 15 years, he ran UCC’s climbing program and mentored hundreds of climbers.

“You have these kids that are ADHD, dyslexic, you know. But then you get them outside, and get them to focus. And when someone is climbing, and focused on the moves — they excel,” Orton said.

One of those kids who excelled was Willie Long. Now the assistant director of Southern Oregon University’s Outdoor Program, Long started climbing with Orton when he was 15, and went on to teach at expedition schools in far-off places such as Australia.

“Greg always made all of these little opportunities for me to do more. Like, take on more responsibility, or teach something more advanced,“ Long said.

One of the opportunities Orton created was offering to pay Long’s way through professional climbing certifications with the American Mountain Guide Association. This, Long said, was the kind of mentorship that led him to his teaching role at SOU.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed more people to recreate outside than ever, according to research from the Outdoor Industry Association. One of those people was Halie Cousineau, a Southern Oregon transplant who joined the Southwest Oregon Climbers Coalition nonprofit that Orton founded. According to its official website, SWOCC’s purpose is to advocate for rock climbing opportunities for all people. Cousineau joined, she said, to make friends and get to know a new area.

“They immediately rubbed me the right way,” she said. ”I like having a community I can take action in, and that’s what they do. They make sites more accessible and they work on education.”

In September of 2020, the Archie Creek fire scorched the patchwork green valley surrounding the Honeycombs. For as long as it takes to strip the valley of burned salvage logs, climbing in the area is closed, said John Blodgett, the private timber owner that SWOCC worked with to allow climbing access to the area.

But the bolts that Orton drilled are stainless steel, he said. And likely, they’ll be just fine. Climbing will come back to the Honeycombs, and the fire and logging will likely only expose new parts of the cliffs to climb, he said.

In the climbing world, to do a first ascent is a big deal. Your name is attached to a route, forever.

“I don’t think Greg really wants people to recognize him. He just wants people to be out there climbing. He wants these places to be accessible, forever,” Long said.

Orton’s name is attached to over 200 routes in Southern Oregon. When asked which one is his favorite, he said, “Well, I don’t have one. That’s like asking what your favorite kid is.”