Grumpies visit to Kalymnos April 11th - 21st 2008
Team: Gerry Langsley, Nick Longland, Adey Hubbard, Chris Jackson.
Gerry, who amongst us is the acclaimed local expert on climbing on Kalymnos arranged this trip, his 5th my 4th. The visit however differed slightly from previous trips, being outside of the package tour season. So what? So instead of flying to Kos, then taking a ferry to Pothia on Kalymnos we flew to Athens, spent a night and half a day there before flying on to Kalymnos' new airport.
A bit of a drag but it did give us a chance to explore the Athens Metro system and visit the Parthenon, the famous ruins on top of the Acropolis. See 01, there we were along with 1000 other tourists and it was only 10.00am. There's a lot of ruins up on the hill, but they'll look a lot better when they get all the scaffolding down. Don't mention the marbles.
Picture 02 shows us boarding the Olympic Airways plane at Athens International Airport, Nick and Gerry are just visible on the right. Unlike Athens however, Kalymnos airport is small and new, and built into the top of a hill so that the single short runway ends nicely above a steep rocky hillside dropping into the sea. Arriving from the sea end, the sudden appearance of tarmac where once there was thin air was somewhat alarming though I suppose that one would eventually become accustomed to it. Gerry had booked us some accommodation and were met at the airport by the owner of Melina's Appartments who drove us down to our appartments in Masouri. These were excellent rooms with a view and it was possible to sit out on the patio at breakfast time and look out over sunny Mirties harbour and the brown hills beyond.
Sunday April 13th. This was Adey's first visit to the island and it being early in the outdoor climbing season we all felt like we needed easing gently into the climbing. First we picked up our hire car and the we drove along the coast to Arginonda Bay and Arhi which appropriately means 'beginning' in Greek. Looking for routes that we hadn't climbed before we wandered up to Arhi Left Wall where there were some 6a and 6a+ routes listed in the new section of the guide book. My starter for one was Killian which was given an undergraded 6a+, other routes to the left fell more easily including Axe at 6b and Tsopanakos and Stanislas at 6a+ and 6a respectively. All were excellent routes up a steep grey slightly tufery wall.
Monday April 14th. There is now a new road running from Arghinonda village tp the capatal Pothia, cutting out a laborious drive past our appartments should you need to get to the virtually uninhabited north end of the island. The words EU and "our money" spring to mind but perhaps I am just being cynical. Moi? Anyway, the new road has given easy access to a new crag named Arghinonda and apart from the fact that the road has created a 10m cliff of rubble which needs to be scaled with the aid of a fixed rope, yes, access is easy.
It's definitely worth a visit though bare in mind that it gets hot late morning onwards. Picture 03 is Gerry on Wild Sex 6b, nice climbing up an improbable looking wall of bulges. Other worthwhiles were Pornokini 6a, Cap Arvithis 6b and Anna Maria 6b. Picture 04, looking for shade at Arghinonda.
Tuesday April 15th. Gerry took us to Palace, a crag near Skalia village on the north end of the island. I'd not been there before but Adey and I were assured that there were classics to be ticked. Well, maybe but it didn.t turn out to be one of our greatest days. Adey and I threw ourselves at the classic Mia's Palace 6a, however, neither of us were able to make any headway on the incredibly slippery holds and eventually, defeated I left an old carabiner and baled out. The adjacent Ballrom, a very airy 5c proved much more ameanable, picture 05 (GL) is me being lowered off. Nick managed to lead the tricky Balcony 6c after a little air time and we all followed it, there were some interesting moves but hardly stacking up to a great route that its 3 star rating suggested, it was possible to step off the route to the right at half height. See gallery.
We visited the little peninsula Cape Kasteli and the crag of the same name. The others climbed a couple of 6a including Pillar of the Sea, 6a, picture 06 I pottered around and took some flower close-ups. Picture 07 Milk Thistle flower, picture 08 some sort of Compositae which is not in my Mediterranean flower book.
Wednesday April 16th. Iliada is a relatively newly developed crag to the right of the very popular Odyssey which is now beginning to suffer with polish. There were some excellent routes here and the crag will probably see some more development though almost certainly in the upper grades. Still, there were some excellent middle grade routes and Kalhas 6b, Tefkros 6a, Priamos 6b+, Ektor 6c, and Beautiful Helen 6b were all ticked off between us. Some of the routes, particularly Kalhas and Priamos were very prickly in parts, excellent routes but not with sore fingers! Picture 09 is the view looking south from Iliada. Pictures 10 (GL) and 11 are me and Adey on the delightful Kalhas 6b.
Thursday April 17th. Today Ghost kitchen. We had visited this curiously named crag a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Nick and Gerry had some serious objectives in mind, Adey and I were just going to go with the flow and see whatever. Adey and I climbed the obligatory Joy in the Garden 6a+ and a new companion route to its right Absent Friends 6a while Nick powered his way up Resista 6c which we all followed and Globus 6c+ which we all didn't. Adey and I headed for the lower slabs before the sun reached them but I was distracted by a little plaque indicating a brand new route Pic-Pic, no grade, taking a splendid white pillar. So new there was still rock dust from the drills, the route turned out to be a cracking 3 star 6b or 6b+. Not to be missed.
Friday April 18th. Telendos is the craggy island visible from all along the northern peninsula of Kalymnos and although there has been climbing on it for several years now most of the routes were multipitch with long-ish approaches. The new guide book described a new sports crag Irox, which could be reached on foot after the ferry crossing (40 mins) or on a speedboat by arrangement with the ferry man. Good guess, we went for the speedboat option but chose to walk back.
Picture 12 (NL) shows the crag, taken as we were leaving it in the afternoon, and picture 13 shows the speedboat leaving us in the morning. It's not a massive crag and indeed, there seems to be a much bigger buttress some 15 minutes further up the hillside which will almost certainly be developed in the future. The pinnacle of the day was Nick's ascent Helvet-X an alarmingly overhanging 6c monster towards the left end of the crag, see pictures 14 and 15 (AH). Other worthy routes were Magmay 6b+, The Magic Circle 6a+, The White Rose 6a and Ingleton 6b+.
The walk back started off a little scratchy and it proved important to aim high to avoid a craggy area in the nearby ravine but once over the ridge one joined the main path which leads in one direction to the monastery and the summit of Rachi, and in the other back to the village of Telendos.
Picture 16, Adey's picture of sunset over Telendos.
Saturday April 19th. Slightly climbed out, we visited the easy access crag of Kasteli again for some more forgettable grey walls. Picture 17 (GL), Chris on Pillar of the Sea 6a.
Sunday April 20th. Another beautiful day and I decided to go for a walk, and starting from the appartment I headed along the coast, through Kandouri, continued past the Monastery of Aghios Fotis and the adjacent crags and on to Cape Trachilos. It became very windy and once rounding the Cape the path degenerated into disperate goat paths, scrub and rocky outcrops. I persisted for an hour as I planned to make a circuit through the village of Arghos progress became so slow that I retraced my steps and by the time I reched the appartments I had been out a hot 7 hours. The wind continued to build and we heard that the airport had been closed.
Monday April 21st. It was still windy in the morning but, like magic as the time for the flight neared the wind dropped.
Left to right, Chris Jackson (me), Gerry Langsley, Grumpy Nick Longland and Adey Hubbard (Sir).