Kalymnos, September 2007
Week 1 : 14th - 19th
Week 2 : 21st - 26th
- Climber magazine. Article by Ray Wood
- Guidebook by Aris Theodoropoulous (available at most climbing stores)
- Extract from Mountain Hardwear’s spring 05 catalogue, by Neil Gresham, shown in full below:
- Kalymnos 2007 Trip report, by Neil Gresham
Further Reading-
KALYMNOS by Neil Gresham
Somewhere in the Mediterranean, the evening sun soaks a perfect tufa-covered limestone cliff which looks out over a sparkling emerald sea. The air is full of the scent of fresh herbs and the sound of strings lilts from one of the open air restaurants on the beach below. Fancy a climb now? Launch up onto that tufa pipe, clip those bolts, grab the belay and lower off into space with a whoop of joy. But by the time you’ve reached the ground the buzz has dissipated, leaving you hungry for more and the feeding frenzy won’t cease until you’re forced to tear yourself away to catch your flight home. Maximum pleasure, minimum strain, fast food at it’s best. Welcome to Kalymnos!
Ever since my first visit to Kalymnos five years ago, I’ve returned without fail for my annual fix. But more recently I’ve started running coaching holidays seeing as it’s such a perfect place to introduce people to sport climbing. There are routes of all grades and styles right at your finger-tips, from technical slabs to wild, pumping overhangs. And richer still, you’re likely to have most of it to yourself. We stay in a hotel below the crag, and make an early start to catch the shady morning conditions, crank all day and then when it gets too hot to bear, we run down the hill and leap in the pool. I recall one afternoon when everyone was relaxing with a beer, re-living the day’s conquests in high spirits; everyone except for one person who was notably silent..
At fifteen years old Leah Crane is one of the future hopes for British women’s climbing. I first started coaching her when she was only ten after meeting her at her local wall in Nottingham. Her background as a gymnast meant that she had extraordinary power and determination for someone of her lowly years. At that stage she had no rock experience and all I had to do was take her to the crag and step back while she tore it down. She had come to Kalymnos with us the previous year and she seemed to improve her grade almost every day we went to the crag. It had seemed that nothing was an obstacle and her customary larking around was a sign that it was all a breeze. But this year it was different, she had expressed to me that she wanted to climb an 8a route and I pointed her in the direction of the steepest and most powerful one I could find. Orion has seen off many challengers, but midway through the trip, Leah was growing concerned that she might be added to the list. After three brave days of effort, she was still falling off in the middle of the crux sequence, each time taking a huge plummet seeing as she was unable to clip one of the bolts. Her fingers were badly torn from a sharp pocket and her arms were all worked out. She sat by the pool in silence for the first time ever. I remembered my first 8a at the age of eighteen and knew exactly what she was going through. I reassured her that she still had three more clear climbing days and that she’d definitely do it. But we both knew deep down that in this game there are no certainties. I took a sip of my beer and rejoiced my role as coach rather than athlete.
Another rest day for Leah only heightened the tension. The last thing you want to be doing is resting when you’re just so desperate to get it over with. All you can do is twiddle your thumbs and go over the moves in your head for the thousandth time. The next day we had to go to separate crags but I insisted that she texted me to keep me updated with her progress. By lunchtime the phone had been noticeably quiet and I noticed that the rest of the team were being evasive every time I mentioned her name. And then the penny dropped, she’d done it and wanted to tell me in person! The grin on her face when I saw her back at the pool said all I needed to know. With the hard work done, it was onto a new phase in the trip for Leah.
Each year I take a drill with me to Kalymnos and spend the afternoons sat by the pool, scanning the cliffs for new lines with my binoculars. When it starts to cool down in the orange evening, I trudge back up the hill again with both body and batteries re-charged and set to work. There is an overwhelming amount of spare rock on this island. Future five-star crags lie in wait of development and blatantly obvious lines jump out even on the most popular cliffs. This year I found a stunning 60m high amphitheatre that gets exponentially steeper towards the top, with not a single line on it. It took me two days to place 17 bolts and a belay and then I managed to free-climb the whole line at 8a in one long mind-bending pitch. I had reasoned that it might make sense to place a belay at half height and create a pitch that would be more amenable and I had challenged Leah to see if she could repeat it. Although I had effectively reduced Aurora by half its length, 30 metres of 7b climbing was still a lot for Leah to take on. She seemed pretty excited about the idea but when she got to the bottom of the climb, she promptly fell asleep for 2 hours! Orion had taken its toll and I reasoned that there was unlikely to be any meaningful climbing from her that day. But in true style, she woke up, had a quick stretch and then promptly flashed the pitch to make the second ascent.
Kalymnos was the highlight of a great year for Leah in which she went on to lead a grade V ice route on her first trip to the mountains in winter, and all whilst studying for her GCSEs. She’s more than earned her place on the Mountain Hardwear team and I’m going to have to see what I can come up with next year, what with her nipping at my heels! After all, I’m not ready to retire to the role of coach just yet.
