Poor Claire, still…

Claire’s shoulder is still quite painful, so she is still resting. She has been really lovely and continued belaying me. I owe her lots and lots of belay days!

Turning circles…

We had an exciting day getting to and from the crag… The guidebook advised that a new road would lead us to the crag. We eventually found the road and the van did a great job of hauling us up the extremely steep gravel track. We figured that if the van could get up, it could certainly get back down again…

After climbing we set off down the steep track and approached a very tight hairpin bend. On the way up we’d made it most of the way around the corner (to where the gradient reduced), reversed slightly and then manoeuvred around the hairpin. On the way down I took the bend as wide as possible and turned in… Things didn’t go too well! The road was so steep and uneven that the van was only had two or three wheels in contact with road and slid/rolled around the bend. Then a big problem… We didn’t have the turning circle to complete the bend and stopped with the van teetering on a very steep gradient, with its front bumper inches from a concrete wall. Only one of the front wheels was in contact with the ground and the van was slowly rocking on the extremely contoured surface. I soon realised that the gradient was way too much for the handbrake and had to keep my right foot firmly planted on the foot brake. [Sorry we don’t have pictures of this! Taking photos wasn’t high on our list of priorities at this point!]

There was no way to reverse – we only had one front wheel in contact with the ground and the gradient was so great that we didn’t stand a chance. So there we were, we couldn’t go forwards and couldn’t go backwards. There were about 5 people around (who seemed quite amused), but there was no way they could push a 2.5t van up this gradient. I wondered it we could set up a big pulley system of a nearby boulder and use a climbing rope to haul the van back up. However, this would take some time to set up and would be unlikely to work (especially with dynamic ropes). We eventually noticed a 4x4 truck and managed to find the owner. They agreed to try to pull us back. We used a climbing rope to tie the vehicles together and Claire put the bouldering matt between the front of the van and the concrete wall.

The first attempt to pull was quite unsuccessful… Due to poor communication with the Greek people, the timing was slightly off and (also, due to slack in the system) the van rolled into the wall. Fortunately the bouldering matt did a great job and no damage was done! The second attempt was successful and the van moved back enough to manoeuvre the hairpin.

We needed to recover from the stress so headed straight for some beer…

Kalymnian Climbing

Prior to our visit we imagined Kalymnos to be mostly harder climbing on steep/overhanging rock. However, we were surprised to discover that the climbing comprises many different styles including many slabs and technical walls, with most climbs in the F5c-F6b grade range.

That said, it seems most people come to Kalymnos to climb the very steep climbs on big holds, tufas and stalactites. The climbing is often 3D and lots of fun (if you like that sort of thing!). Many of the very overhanging routes are true tests of endurance – no one move is that hard, but the climbing is very sustained (great if you’re a strong climbing-wall climber!).

Unfortunately, the more popular routes are getting polished. However, there is so much climbing (which is under continuous development) it is easy to find many great routes in very good condition.

"Moon Bridge"

Nearly 8a… I’ve now managed my first 7c+ redpoint. Unsurprisingly, it was no gift! It took about 8 attempts over four days, but was worth the effort.

The route is a 15 degree overhanging wall on small crimps and sloping holds. The crux section lasted four bolts (8m) and comprised many technical, balancy moves. The crux sequence ended with the two hardest and most tenuous moves involving a very balancy sequence on a sloping crimp and another bad hold. These two moves alone took me an hour to find a solution. It was a bit like two hard boulder problems strung together. The top half of the climb compromised better holds, but some long, dynamic and pumpy moves. Clipping the chain was also tough and I nearly fell off right at the end.

It did feel very hard, but then if it didn’t there wouldn’t be the same sense of achievement. 8a is the next step, but unlikely to happen this trip as time is running short and I think it would require a lot of time and effort!

Falling

How many climbers really enjoy falling off…? Very few I think. Although one Frenchman on Kalymnos says he likes some routes because they have ‘beautiful falls’! However, most climbers we’ve met still have a healthy fear of falling, and some are still petrified of it!

When I refer to falling in the sport climbing sense I mean the ‘safe’ falls (if there is such a thing!); falls where the climber falls safely into free space, or swings into a wall under control. Pretty much all sport climbing falls are ‘safe’ falls, which is why climbers can push themselves to their physical limit. Thankfully, if managed sensibly/safely, serious falls are very rare.

Paradoxically, most climbers fear the fall, but it is this fear that makes most want to climb. For me, the chance of the fall is part of the rush, the buzz. However, it can be mentally tiring and some days it is difficult to face the possibility of the fall. Days like these are usually spent doing easy and more relaxing climbs.

Claire is still very scared of falling, however, on some of her harder climbs she has been absorbed by the climbing and pushed herself to the limit, fallen and still enjoyed the experience!

[Photo sequence above – David falling off the Colonist 8a+, Antalya.]
[Left: I'm still smiling after falling 4m and stopping just before the ground – not something I want to do again!]

Poor Claire

Poor Claire isn’t having much luck with her shoulder! The injury has been niggling her for the whole trip, but has got considerably worse over the last week. We think it is partially torn muscle/ligament. Claire is taking a week or so off to see how it improves.

8a… is quite hard, but not impossible!

I’ve (Jason) tried my first 8a on lead. The route is called ‘Angelica’ and is on a very steep wall in Arhi sector in Kalymnos. The route is sustained most of the way up with no opportunities for a good rest. The crux is right at the top and involves a very long move on a reasonable crimp. I managed to do all the moves, but it was hardly a stylish ascent and involved many rests! The conditions were poor and most holds were greasy and some wet, (This wasn’t obvious from the bottom.) so I hope to try and work the route again when it is in better condition. It’s unlikely to go as a redpoint on this trip, but it’ll be good to try when dry to see how far off I am.

Bafa

We eventually (and reluctantly) left Geyekbayiri and headed west to Lake Bafa. The van behaved itself impeccably and we arrived to a beautiful evening on the shores of lake Bafa. The landscape is breathtaking, but even more so if you’re a boulderer. The shores of the lake and all the slopes of the neighbouring mountains are littered with thousands of granite boulders.

Bouldering is relatively new to the area and only a few hundred problems have been documented, so if you’re a boulderer who wants to explore loads of virgin boulders then the potential is massive. Unfortunately, due to minor van issues, our stay here only allowed one day of bouldering. The boulders that we visited had some really good problems on them. It took us a little time to adapt from limestone to granite, but we soon clambered up a few problems.

Geyekbayiri Games... and 6c+...

Managed to redpoint one of the classic lines at Geyekbayiri - 'Geyekbayiri Games' an awesome 7b+ up an overhanging wall, on a single tufa. Tufas are definitely a weakness for me, so it felt like a good achievement! Claire did the route on second too. (A picture of another climber on the route.)

Claire has recently onsighted a 6c+ also - made it look easy! Almost onsighted a 7a too!

The wonderful mechanic… (Read after ‘Free lunch’ – below)

After trying the main dealer approach we opted for the local Turkish mechanic. A friend suggested a reliable Turkish man who used a stethoscope to listen to engines – he sounded perfect. We arrived at the ‘engine Doctor’s’ garage and tried to explain the fault (via phone translation). Fortunately, the neighbouring mechanic spoke good English and offered to fix the problem. He ran an Alfa Romeo garage so didn’t seem best qualified for a VW van, but what choice did we have…? He came for a drive in the van and listened to the noise. He thought it was external to the engine and probably to do with the belts, also. We returned to his garage and he removed the steering pump belt, but the noise persisted. Alternator and water pump belt off too, but still the noise. Next he removed the drive pulley from the engine and the noise vanished! The drive pulley had some dirt or metal caught in it (not surprising when you see the roads in Turkey), and when hot it was chaffing against the engine. He cleaned it all up and the van was once again purring as all diesel engines do!
He charged us 30TL (£13) for his two hours of labour. Yes, that’s £6.50 an hour – we couldn’t believe it! We gave him another 5TL for some beer and departed…

Then, bad news… a new noise! As we accelerated/decelerated in second gear there was a loud knock/clunk coming from the front of the van. We returned to the garage and explained the new problem. The new noise was perplexing – all he had done was removed some belts and pulleys and replaced them again. One possible explanation was that something had been loosened by the force of jacking the van one side. The mechanic spent the next six hours looking for the problem. He tried adjusting something then we’d test drive, but the knock always persisted. He changed the bushes on the torsion bar; checked the steering rack mounts; checked the suspension; the exhaust. He even jacked the engine up and removed/checked the engine mounts!

One test drive was particularly amusing as he wanted to listen to the noise whilst the van was in motion. We drove to a busy three lane road and he asked me to stop. He lifted the bonnet, put his torso in the engine bay, lowered the bonnet and told me to drive! How could I drive without running him over? He became impatient and told me to just drive and to keep accelerating and decelerating in second gear. At this point I realised that he was hunched with his feet resting on the bumper and his entire torso under the bonnet. I drove very tentatively at first, but he continued to encourage me to go faster! There is no video, so please imagine our VW going at 20mph along a busy three lane road with a small Turkish man standing on the front bumper with his body jammed under the bonnet!

Even after six hours of work the noise persisted, it was truly perplexing. We had seen him try everything. I had spent over an hour under the van with him and there was no obvious explanation. We were all tired and decided to give up. We hoped that the problem may become more obvious another day and we could return to fix it then. The mechanic wanted no money for the 6 hours (I think he felt it was due to the jacking), so we set off back to Geyekbayiri.

Miraculously, the noise had gone! We don’t know how or why, but nothing persisted! This truly wonderful man had spent all of his day on our van and wanted almost nothing in return. We felt so guilty about the whole episode that we will return to give him some money to say thank you.

Free Lunch (Read before ‘The wonderful mechanic’ - above)

The van is not happy again – it started making a rather worrying noise after climbing for 10 mins up a steep hill. The scraping noise was very noticeable and didn’t sound good. We spent some time looking under the bonnet and could not pinpoint the noise – our only guess being a belt or pully…?

We took the van to VW and tried to explain the problem. Unfortunately, they did not speak English but we managed to explain with a friend translating via a telephone. VW made us wait many hours and gave us countless cups of teas. They even invited us for a free, but very bad, canteen lunch. We could see the van during the entire four hour wait and only noted one mechanic peeking at the engine for five minutes. They eventually informed us that they thought the fault was in the engine and they would have to strip the engine to pinpoint it! They then said that it would take 20-25 days to get any replacement parts! Our hearts sank… we couldn’t afford an engine rebuild or the associated wait, but nor could we get ourselves and our kit back to the UK very easily…

We decided that VW were either wrong or trying to con us out of lots of money. We know the engine very well and it sounded fine to us; there was just an additional noise external to the engine. We left VW without paying anything and drove back up to Geyekbayiri. The noise persisted, but the already poor performance seemed unaffected!

Harry

Our friend Harry joined us for a 10 day climbing break. We showed him the local rock and we spent many days flailing around on the climbs. Harry provided lots of amusement at the Climbers Garden Campsite, as every morning he would do his yoga routine. One morning was particularly funny… He was attempting a pose near to a group of Czech students, who were enjoying their breakfast. Unfortunately, the pose caused too much pressure on Harry’s stomach and resulted in a very loud release across our neighbour’s breakfast. They seemed to find it very amusing, and Harry’s morning yoga has become a bit of a legend!

Breakdown

It was a sad day when the van died! It’s been working perfectly for 5300 miles, then it decided to stop! We returned with our trolley of shopping, loaded the van and tried to start it in the supermarket car park… Starter motor and battery fine, but she just wouldn’t start. We tried in vain for some time. We even tried lifting the bonnet, looking at the engine and scratching our heads, but to no avail!

At this point we didn’t know what to do. Do they have breakdown services in Turkey…? How do we get towed…? We spoke to the lady at the info desk in the shopping centre and she called the VW garage, which happened to be 5 miles away! Within an hour the big red bus was winched atop a tow truck and we set off for VW.

Much to our surprise, the VW mechanics took seconds to start the van. They spent one hour doing checks with their computer and told us there was nothing wrong. In fact, according to their computer, the van was working perfectly! Perhaps it was just having a bad day. Then came the bill… Amazingly, they charged us £21.50 for the tow and all the checks were free! We even got free cups of tea! May have been more expensive in England…

We’ve since realised (through discussion with others) it was most likely that the immobilizer had disabled the fuel pump. We can only guess that driving through the deep ford got some electrics damp and upset the immobilizer in some way. All has been well since…

Escape

We had to leave Olympus to meet a friend (Harry) back at Geyekbayiri, however, the ford still looked quite high. We decided to make a bid for freedom. We tackled it with quite a lot of speed, and after lots of wheel spinning on the wet, rocky riverbed we made it through.

Stranded...

We are staying in a car park next to the Cirali beach, a short walk from Olympus. The car park is only accessible via a ford, which was very low on our arrival (see picture). However, it has since rained heavily for three days and the river has changed character greatly, making a crossing look quite risky! On the third day of heavy rain we noticed a car pull up in front of the river. Our instant reaction was to grab the cameras and run over to see if they were stupid enough to drive across a cloudy, torrent of water… They were that stupid! The car was only part way across, when the current spun the nose downstream and the occupants started to look very concerned. Fortunately, the car wasn’t quite deep enough to get washed away, and the occupants struggled out from the windows. The little girl was not happy and two guys seem to try and exit from the same window…? We soon dropped the cameras and tried to help pull the car from the river. Even with 10 people and a rope the car wouldn’t shift, so our Czech friend used their van to tow the car to dry land.
The river is currently just passable; however, it is raining again and looking like we may be stranded until the weather permits our passage back to Geyekbayiri…

Chimaera

There are many interesting attractions in the Olympos area; one of the more interesting has to be Chimaera. After a relaxing rest day we decided to hike the 5 km from Cirali up to the Chimaera. The Chimaera is a magical place where dozens of flames come up from the rocks lighting up the hill side, as we neared the area it looked as though the mountain was on fire. The flames are caused by methane gas escaping from the ground and are perfect for cooking your dinner on!

Climbing Paradise…?

We decided to visit another climbing area called Olympos. Olympos (about 1.5hrs from Geyekbayiri) is an old ruined city contained within a deep valley. Much of the ruins have been enveloped by the wildlife, but it is still a great place to wander through. Our main reason for visiting Olympos was to climb on Sector Cennet. We knew that Sector Cennet had some fantastic climbing on excellent rock.

We approached Sector Cennet via a rocky coastal path and turned a corner to get our first glimpse of this amazing crag. The crag was a perfect sheer face of multi-coloured limestone. It was streaked with, yellows, oranges, pinks, greys and purples and split by various cracks and weaknesses. The rock was steep and comprised everything from very steep slabs to slightly overhanging walls, with most routes in the French seventh grade. We warmed up on a F6b and soon realised that the rock demanded impeccable footwork on the small edges and smooth bumps.











Claire has found a great 7a project, which she has been practising for a red-point attempt. I managed to on-sight my first F7b, which I was very happy about! I’ve since fallen off another F7b, so not solid at the grade yet!

Bumps in the night.

For most of the trip we’ve tried to park in ‘free parking’ spots. However, at Geyekbayiri we opted to stay in a campsite to use warm showers and do laundry. On leaving the campsite we found a spot in a lay-by near the road. At around midnight we were awoken by the sound of a vehicle pulling up and the sound of a scrape/bang on the van, shortly followed by a further scrape/bang. We were of course quite concerned, especially after warnings at the border that it was dangerous to sleep in the van. We stayed still, not quite sure what to do, and soon after the vehicle pulled away.

We tried to relax and get back to sleep, but were awoken again by what sounded like the same vehicle. This time I was determined to discover who was outside. I threw some clothes on and pulled the side door open… The two men were wearing dark green uniforms and introduced themselves as the ‘Gendarme’. They wanted to see our passports and warned us that is was dangerous to sleep in the van. They said it was fine to stay in the van, but we’d be safer under a street light.

We’ve since discovered that it is a very safe area, and the police were probably just trying to scare into staying at an official campsite. We’ve seen them again since and they were very friendly. We’ve now found a great spot outside the ‘Climbers garden’ campsite where we can use the facilities for a small fee.

Incidentally, the noise was the police investigating a bag a chilled food on the van roof!

Dave, Dave, David…

So far in Turkey we’ve met many climbers but only got to know a few better. Strangely, they all share the same name. Is ‘Dave/David’ a really common name or do we just attach people of this name? Time will tell…

Projects

We’ve spent the first few weeks getting to know the crags and seeking the out the best climbs and potential projects [harder climbs to spend time practising, so that we can eventually climb them in one attempt without resting/falling]. The climbing here is generally steep and over-hanging, with a good mix of technical wall climbing and steep, powerful tufa climbing. We have faired better on the technical wall routes, but these are extremely sharp and crimpy and take their toll on the finger tips! We have tried the steep tufa climbing too, but it often ends in lots of swearing and falling off! We are not expert at tufas yet, but improving slowly!

Claire is climbing really well and has on-sighted [lead-climbed to the top without resting/falling, with no prior knowledge of the moves] her first F6c. She also has a F7b project she wants to red-point [lead-climb to top without resting/falling, after previous attempts practising the moves]. I’ve on-sighted F7a and have red-pointed F7b. I now have two F7b+ projects and am looking for a good F7c…

{This is another climber on one of my projects - he made it look slightly easier than I did!}

Knife wound

Claire had a slight accident when cutting cheese and decided to try and remove her thumb! Thankfully, her bone stopped the knife and she survived with just a deep cut. It has healed well now and she is continuing to climb unhindered.