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…