Kalymnos 09

For those of you that did not know, I have been away for the last month climbing in Greece, again!  Last year a few of us went on a last minute trip to the sport climbing Mecca that is Kalymnos. This small Island found near the more famous island of Kos has in recent years become a major attraction for climbers around the world, due to its great weather, food but most of all the climbing is fantastic. 

Chris Savage Climbing F8b

On our last trip we headed straight to the obvious Grande Grotto, this massive Amphitheatre takes centre stage in a giant sweep of limestone sitting just a short walk from the village of Massourii. This huge Cave has some of the most impressive Tufa formations in the world! which allow for some incredible long steep lines to be climbed such as 'Priapos' a 35m monster line that just goes on for ever, and if you are up for some clever rope work (two ropes and two belayers) and you own a massive amount of quick draws then you can carry on and climb a huge 55m pitch in one go! These distances may not appear huge to the Pembroke veteran but when you see that they are 20 to 40 degrees overhanging the whole way then you start to understand how impressive the terrain really is.

Jon Freeman on his way to Onsighting F8A

Our trip last year was very very good and we all vowed to return as soon as possible and the start of April found us all back on the Island with a few extras, it was almost little Swansea at one point! This year we explored the island more checking out other 'Sectors' to see what they have to offer from the incredible Sikati cave to the more well know 'Sector Spartacus'. What we found was a tremendously varied area with lots of different styles of climbing being found within a small area from Tufa ridden caves to Pocket covered walls!

Nickola Taylor Flashing a F7A at Sector Spartacus

In a Month we saw some incredible Climbing take Place with notable achievements from the Swansea climbers with many of us achieving personal bests:

 Micheal Griffiths who Onsighted his first F7A

 Liz Collyer Redpointed her First F7A and completed her first 6C Onsight

 Jon Freeman Onsighted his First F8A

Simon Robinson Flashed his first F7C

Stuart Llewellyn did his first F7a Onsight

Liz Pulling hard on the Tufa

These are Just a few of many brilliant moments of our trip which i would recommend to anybody, as the island caters for all grades from F3 upwards. it is slightly more expensive to fly to Greece than Spain but in my opinion Kalymnos should be on every body's tick list for place to go!

so any way i'm back in the UK know and its raining but hey come October i'll be back on the Island!

simon enjoying a month of sun and great climbing

Happy climbing

simon