Kalymnos from the air

A stressful journey back

Our extremely useful host at the studios assured us that taking the 9:30 ferry would leave us plenty of time to get to the airport, and against our better judgement we believed him.  The first bad sign was when the ferry left almost 15 minutes late.  Then, despite there being twenty people waiting for rides to the airport (10 minutes away in a car) at Mastixari, there were no taxis!  After around thirty minutes, one arrived and a bunch of us who were all on the same Ryanair flight piled in.  One of the people was a Kalymnian on her way to visit her brother in Grenoble, so we offered to give her a ride, if by some miracle we all managed to make it onto the plane.  The taxi driver sensed our desperation and ripped us off -- charging double the going rate, but we were happy to pay it, and in no position to haggle.  After ten tense minutes, we arrived at the airport.  By this time, the luggage check in had closed, so we had to pay 120 euro to get our bags on, and security sent us on a wild goose chase to get our US passports stamped.  The problem is that no one in the airport seemed to know what stamp was needed.  At one point they actually took our passports and disappeared for what seemed like ten minutes.  Chloe and I eventually made it to the gate, where they had not even started boarding, and walked by the big line (reserved seats again) to collapse in our seats.  We gave each other some incredulous looks at having actually made it onto the plane, and then began the long process of trying to drop our stress-o-meters down to normal levels.  A short plane ride later, we arrived in Milan Bergamo, picked up the bags, found the Kalymnian, and walked outside to the Ciao Parking shuttle stop.  The shuttle arrived shortly afterwards, and the driver took our receipts.  Four minutes later we were at the parking, where to my astonishment, our car was waiting for us!  The driver had apparently called ahead to have our car driven out of the warehouse.  Then it was on the road for Grey-noble, via the crazy Italian autoroutes.  Somewhere around Susa, the Carbinieri made us exit the autoroute and take the equivalent of the route nationale, which was stopped dead in a huge column of traffic.  After about a half an hour, we re-routed via back roads and discovered the reason:  a protest against the proposed new train tunnel.  They were waving white flags and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Just what we needed after our relaxing morning.  Next, the exorbitantly priced (>40 euro!)  Frejus tunnel, through the Maurienne and the Gresivaudan.  We then dropped the Kalymnian off in the center of town and then made our way home to collapse.

Grande Grotta

A trip to Kaly wouldn't be the same without at least one visit to the big cave, so it seemed like a fitting way to end our stay on the island. I started the day with stomach issues, as usual (the food has not been agreeing with me these past few days) but after a late start we hiked up to a new sector (to us) called the Spartan Wall.  Jeff, the Aussie from Sweden had recommended Lucifer's Hammer, so after warming up on a chossy 5c called Tigryonak and then Probleme Mineur (fantastic) we climbed Lucifer's Hammer, which was wonderful.  Chloe flashed it too, which is her hardest flash!  And that is after I gave her some really awful beta for the crux.

Next stop, the big cave itself.  When we first visited back in 2003 I was fixated on one route: DNA.  When I first looked at it and the routes next to it I will admit that I was pretty intimidated, not having climbed anything like that before.  It took a little work, but I eventually sent.  Over the subsequent trips we came back to do Ivi and Aphrodite, and I went more or less bolt to bolt on Aegialis.  I would occasionally see people on a famous route called Priapos (named for the dong-like stalactites everywhere) just to the right.  It is a spectacularly overhung route, and looks exceptional even for Kalymnos.  Having heard that it is easier than Aegialis, I thought I would give it a shot.  When you pull down on the first holds, you really have no idea what a long ride you are in for:  Chloe tells me that I was on the route for almost an hour, milking every rest.  I downclimbed from the crux a few times, and was in the red zone by the time I reached the 7c/7b+ anchors, but I made it!  My proudest flash ever.  The only down side is having to clean the route, which meant climbing it again, seconding.  I think it might have actually been harder to second than to lead (especially after exhausting myself on the send).

Chloe then got on Aphrodite and promptly whacked her head on a stalactite.  She did the moves, but was tired out from her effort on Lucifer's Hammer earlier in the day.

We walked down the hill for one final trip to Linaria to swim, have lunch and then drop the scooter off.  A quick dip in the sea feels fantastic after a (half) day of climbing.  At the scooter rental place, one of the teenagers that run the place during the day drove us back to the studio, nearly killing us and several other motorists along the way.

We had a wonderful last meal at the Aegean tavern



 where the kitten was running around attacking it's mother and tableclothes again. 


Then back home to pack

Rest Day

One last rest day before we go.  It's hard to take rest days when we feel like we should be climbing.  Even Chloe didn't want to rest (it's often only me that doesn't want to take rest days).  We were feeling pretty beat down though, so wanted to be well rested for our last climbing day.  We scootered over to the archaelogical museum, which despite the information on the web was closed, and instead went to Linaria for lunch, waffles and swimming.  I also got corralled into taking some photos of the place we are staying at in Masouri.  As I was trying to not crash the drone, the owner was blabbering endlessly about what shots he wanted, blah blah blah.

Telendos!

We scootered down to the Myrties dock relatively early, with the plan of biting the bullet and paying to charter a boat to Irox.  Since our last trip to Kalymnos without kids, there has been a lot of development on Telendos, with several completely new and spectacular looking crags.  We didn't make it to any of them last year because of a lack of time and complicated logistics, but we were determined to do so this year.  Particularly since Aris had recommended a way of staying out of the sun and sampling the best of the new stuff.  As we were driving through Myrties, we saw a family of climbers, who we cornered at the pier to see where they were going.  Then more climbers showed up and soon we had a large number of people going to the crag, which meant we all paid a lot less.  Along the way we talked to the climbing family, who were from Sweden (Actually the father was an Aussie).  It was their second or third trip to the island, with three kids!  The mother mentioned that they were thinking about staying even longer next time (three weeks), which elicited an audible groan from their teenage daughter.  I guess Kalymnos isn't quite as exciting for teenagers as it is for climbing parents!  Anyway, as we were steaming towards the drop off point, the boat skipper motioned to me, pointed to the tiller, put it in my hand, pointed towards a narrow finger of the island and said "straight"!  I was surprised to discover how much turning the tiller required just to keep the boat straight, but managed to not crash into anything, despite being totally drunk (just kidding, mom!).  Meanwhile, the skipper was readying the front of the boat for what would be an exciting disembark.  Here's Cap'n Max in action. Arrrr

Eventually the skipper came back, steered us around the last bluff and began the disembarking.  This consisted of delicately steering the bow (that's the front for you non Cap'n Max landlubbers) into the rocks with just enough throttle to make sure there was no gap between the boat, a tire and the rocks and then having all the climbers jump off the boat.  From there, it was a twenty minute walk up to the Lambda crag: brilliant long routes on excellent rock. 

Even the warm ups were decent.  We did Hot Chili, General and then Al Alamein (spectacular!) before the sun arrived and we moved down to Pescatore. 

(that's just the sign for Pescatore)
We ran into an American lady who was on her last hurrah before med school at Stanford.  She and a French dude had walked from the normal Telendos ferry "terminal" for an hour and a half, which did not look like fun in the full sun.  At Pescatore we only had time for one route, called OTR:  a decent but soapy tufa climb.  Somehow I ended up getting pretty pumped on this one, but hung on.  Chloe bitterly cursed it. 

Next: Irox!


We had been hearing about a really nice 6b called Magma, so got right on it.  The opening move was slick with the heat and humidity, but fine after that.  A pretty unique climb, but I have to admit that it was far from my favorite of the day.  After resting and shooing away some very aggressive goats

We did Helvet-X which is probably one of my favorite 6c's ever:  diverse movements on excellent rock.

Next: Kyprios Angel which was also really good but not quite as good as Helvet-X
All in all a fantastic (and full) day of climbing.  Kudos to the developers.
The boat showed up right on time and we did the reverse of the unloading process

Arhi

Another day of getting shut down at the crag:  this time at Arhi.  We warmed up on Il Pittore, then Kastor (harder than I remember!) and then utterly shut down on Eros.  We left early and swam at Linaria again, but changed our routine a bit to get a delicious waffle at the coffee place.

I walked up to the Grande Grotta and got some pretty nice drone shots, too

A bit later, we met up with Aris, Katie and met a couple of British climbers who have bought the place right above Aris and Katie named Carl and Ruth.  It was a lot of fun talking about climbing, France (Carl and Ruth have spent a lot of time climbing in France) and Kalymnos.  They gave us a recommendation for a day of climbing in Telendos:  go to the Lambda crag first, then Pescatore and then Irox.  As we were talking we saw some unfortunate people descending in the dark by headlamp on Telendos.  We had a late dinner of pasta chez nous

Local Freezer

There are several new crags on the island of Telendos, but most require a bit a of walking.  and since it has been really hot, we were hoping to get there by boat.  Unfortunately, we couldn't' find anyone else that wanted to take the boat with us, and didn't want to spend 60 euros.  Instead, we went to the local freezer crag, which had a beautiful 6c to warm up on called 'Nostalgia'.  Next, we got seriously sandbagged on a new route, which a Norwegian told us was 6c+ but was actually 7b+!  Next, close but no cigar on the insight of Philotimo.  I really should have taken a look at the route to find the giant bucket after the roof.  Next, on to Magoulias wall where Chloe did Nicolas and Fotini.  I also managed to fall off Sabina, but lowered off and did it clean.  Embarrassing!  On the way down we ran into Aris, Katie and crew with their climbing school at the Summertime crag.  From there, it was back to the studios (where our neighbors wake up at 5:00 in the morning to sweep and do various other things.  Nice) and then to Linaria for food and a dip in the Aegean.  I went down to Armeos to fly the choppah and got a few nice shots, amidst much excitement from passers-by.

And then… a nice sunset!

Moving house

We spent most of the day at Secret Garden today, hung out a little with Aris

and just hung out.  I was climbing *terribly* today, but chloe did well and almost flashed Ricounet, which was her first 7a lead.  I fell off everything.

After climbing for most of the day, we went back to Emborios, where I took some photos of Harry's with Dimitry, and then loaded up the crapscooter for the ride to Masouri.  We had dinner at the Aegean taverna, where there was a tiny kitten wandering around and attacking the tablecloths.  It reminded me of Bento.

real rest day

Today we went to get some more supplies, swim and eat at Linaria, and just generally be lazy.  A HUGE megayacht motored into the tiny Emborios harbor today.  Just to gig eyou an idea of the scale, Emborios is a very small and quiet harbor town:

And this yacht was huge (it's not in this photo).  I googled it and discovered that  it is called the Jaguar, is 56 meters long, 10.4 meter beam, 3650 horsepower, with a crew of 14 and room for 14 guests and is available for charter for the small sum of 240,000 dollars.  That's for the week.  Details here.  It's also available for purchase for 34 million dollars.  I found it a strange choice for harbor, but refreshing in a way, because my assumption would be that a big motivation for chartering a yacht like that would be for rich people to be able to show off to other rich people.  However, there are probably much fewer rich people to impress in Emborios than Portofino.

The locals at least were not impressed at all, barely looking up from their newspapers.   I wanted to get some harbor footage, so started flying the drone off the dock, and people actually got up from their chairs in the middle of their meals to come see the spectacle!  So, <1000 0.="" 34="" dollar="" euro="" million="" p="" quadcopter:1="" super="" yacht:="">

Dinner was wonderful as usual.  The highlight though was our favorite dessert on the island, and one that we look forward to on every kaly trip: Loukoumades!  

These are small doughnut hole like desserts, drizzled in the unequalled Kalymnian thyme honey (Kalymnos is actually known for it's honey).  Harry's are something special though. I'm sure there is a secret recipe involved.  It was our last night at Harry's, which was a little sad.  We did not know what to expect staying in Emporios, but I am sure we will be back.

We also picked up some bolts and hangars from Aris to hopefully replace #4 on por una sociedad… since one of the hangars has rotated off, and is a bit dangerous now.

SIKATI

We have been dreaming of Sikati.  Yes, actually dreaming of it.  And today was the day!  I have heard that the hike is a bit of a slog, but it was not too bad.  A couple of Athenians on scooter pulled up at the parking and we all hiked out to the cave together.  They were going just for the fantastic beach,



but we were there for the climbing.  First step: harnesses on and descend the via cordata into the hole

Next step: warm up on a slippery and hard 6b.  Note to self:  warm up on Lolita next time.  Next step, climb Lolita, which is fantastic.  Next step, fall off the crux of Por una Sociedad con Mujeres Satisfechas:  check.  I took one more burn but fell after latching the side pull.  ARGH.  I was planning on coming back to send, but we are on vacation and never made it back.  Oh well.  Next Kaly trip?  Also, probably not the best conditions for that one, as it was super humid.  It's an amazing climb though.

Next, down to the beach for a swim

And then the walk back to the scooter.

It's worth mentioning that the scooter has been utter crap, and barely able to make it up the hill.  Never rent from the G*os rental.  12 euro a day, too, which should have gotten us something decent.

We were at the crag for eight hours today -- we feel like real climbers again!

Rest day already?!

OK, not really a rest day, but an easy day with a no-hard-climb rule ruthlessly enforced.  Chloe was inconsolable because the crag of the day did not involve riding on the scooter, but we managed.  We walked up the hill through the goat pens and got to the Styx crag with just  a little time to climb before the sun started cooking us.  We warmed up on Tonerner Krug, then climbed the excellent Praline and Zugabe.  Next: a little drone flying

 and on to the excellent "I Love Kalymnos"

and amazing "Guillot Corner" dihedral -- the only dihedral I have ever been on with tufas!

From there, it was down to Emborios again, with a shot of our slightly mangled hands

And then fish for lunch

Followed by hanging out at the beach a bit and then wandering to the port for wifi


Also, we switched to a bigger, and wonderful room today at Harry's.  It's still only 48 euro a night, which is well worth it.  It's easily the nicest room we have had on the island, and that's not even talking about the fantastic food and hospitality of Dimitri and Evdokia.   Speaking of which, I ordered the excellent and atypically light Mousakka, and the usual fried eggplant.  At Harry's they have a large vegetable garden, and there is something fantastic about ordering your food, then watching the chef briskly walk out in her apron to the garden, select an eggplant that meets her approval, pick it and then hurry back into the kitchen.

Secret Garden

We have been reading about a new crag called "Secret Garden" near Palionisos for the better part of a year.  The pictures looked fantastic, so naturally it was at the very top of our list of crags to visit (actually it even played a part in our deciding to stay in Emborios this year).  You park on the dirt shoulder, hike up a col, then follow a trail that follows the contour of the hills Eastwards.  Along the way, there is not much that looks like it could be climbable, which I mentioned to Chloe a few times!  After the last bluff, however, a huge crag opens up below you.




 It is stunning and perfectly oriented for the summer because it is out of the sun by the morning.  Even better: it is bristling with interesting rock features like tufas!

After warming up on the 6a+ to the left, we did the super-fantastic Frapogalo.

Next, the equally classic Ricounet (which had a bat staring at me out of a key hold), Melodrama and then Pomponpidoux.  The last one was pretty pumpy, but I fought through the pump to get the flash (eventually).  We also spoke to Aris and met his wife Katie, which was cool, and I flew the Phantom around the crag.  I took a nice picture of a Norwegian kid on Frapogalo, which might end up in the next guide book!  After driving up the new and excellent road back towards Emborios, on our not new and not-excellent scooter, it was lunch and a swim at Linaria was next on the menu



Dinner was at Harry's again.  We have become addicted to the perfectly fried eggplant slices and chickpea cakes.  Chloe had a wonderfully fresh fish that had been wrapped with tomatoes and foil and baked in the oven.