Olympos Climbing: Day 2
Oct. 16th, 2017 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylGot up early again and headed down to the square to catch up on things before breakfast. The weather was surprisingly cool first thing and by the time the samovar was up and running, I really nice a hot cup of tea to warm up.
Over breakfast, Gav related an astonishing story from the previous evening — something even he couldn't quite believe had happened. Sometime during the night, Rhos had got up, left their dormitory room, gone into the room next door, woken the guy up who was sleeping in their and told him to stop snoring! As he told us, someone at another table said that they were the person she'd woken, so Gav went over to smooth things over with an apology. When Rhos arrived at breakfast she was slightly embarrassed about the whole thing — she'd apparently only intended to make enough noise to get the guy to stop snoring — but she settled things with the man and everyone seemed OK with the situation.
After eating we headed down to the road we'd followed yesterday, paid to go through the gateway into the ruins, and headed on to the beach.
Once through the ruins — which look like a quay but which are, apparently, actually a bath house — the little creek runs down towards the sea, with a small neck of pebbles allowing access to the western part of the beach and the cliffs above. By this point, the chill of the morning had well and truly burnt off, with the day well on its way to being hot, and we'd all discarded the jackets and jumpers we'd been wearing when we left the tree houses.
The walk up the hill followed a curving path which probably didn't take more than ten minutes to navigate. It reminded me of a warmer version of the South West Coast path in the UK!
Scrambling through the trees and up the path, the rock faces are completely hidden until you reach a small pass, at which point the main wall suddenly appears spread out in front. The rock is fascinating too look at, with long runs of colour and tufa pockets, all capped by scrubby vegetation.
The advanced party arrived early to get some time on slabs before they came into the sun, while the rest of the group decided to have a more leisurely breakfast to allow the main wall with the more challenging routes to come into the shade.
The slabs start at low 5 and gradually increase in difficulty moving down the slope, with the last route being something of a classic: relatively easy with a top section that features a high step and rock-on which, as you move left, reveals a truly spectacular view of the beach.
One nice feature of the crag was the rocky outcrop up by the base of the warm-up slab, putting me at just the right height to watch the others climb some of the more difficult routes on the main wall.
This is definitely my pick of the holiday photos: H on climbing a 6c+ extension — Newberry thought it was closer to 7a+ — to a 6b route. From the chain just below her feet, it's clear that H on the first clip of the top section, just past the anchor of the 6b.
The rest of us moved further down the wall, where I climbed a 6a and, after screwing up a fairly simple sequence and trying to go for a funky double catch, I took my first fall. I was at the third bolt and managed to scuff myself up a bit, but K told me that I'd fallen very elegantly. Annoyed at myself for failing at something quite so simply, I pulled back on and got to the anchor with no trouble at all. The last move on the route was amusing: it ends on a big flake with a substantial gap to the back wall with the anchor point, but it's easy enough to secure the last point.
After doing the 6a, I breezed up the 5c next to it and belayed W on the 6a. He fell at the same point as I did and, even though he warned me it was going to happen, I still ended up two metres in the air, with both of us at almost exactly the same level — not an indignity that happened to Rhos when she was belaying me!
We then moved down the hill and I flashed a 6b on top rope. The route featured an early crux, where the move involved going out to very, very sharp tufa pocket and then up to a crack that ran up a large outthrust block, followed by a sloper on top to transition to a solid rest. All the subsequent moves were powerful, but each featured a good rest point immediately afterwards and the whole thing proceeded very smoothly from that point. The last move to the final pocket was pretty strenuous but, being on top rope, I merely had to check the belayer was happy, go for a victory rattle of the chain, and chuck myself off to send the route.
Some of the others tried the same route shortly after, with only E making any real progress. A couple of the others fell early on the crux, leading to some humorous swings out into a nearby tree. And because they were repeatedly cranking on the sharp pocket, some of them managed to scuff up their hands a treat. Hardly fun.
As the afternoon wore on, E started looking increasingly tired and pale. By mid-afternoon the early party was ready to go and we decamped to a bar on the beach for something to drink and for some people to have a bite to eat. As we walked back along the beach, E announced that she was feeling sick and had to duck into the undergrowth at a couple of points. While the rest of us dawdled, she and C pushed on back to the tree houses with the idea of getting back before she got any sicker.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the problem was caused by her susceptibility to heatstroke — she has had it on the first day of every trip so far — or whether she'd caught the lurgi the pros had had last week. When we got back, we discovered that J, who'd been out for a day earlier than the rest of us, was also suffering, suggesting that E's illness might be more than just a reaction to the temperature.
Supper was rice, a very good bean dish, and chicken for the carnivores. After supper, we had a short impromptu quiz with teams composed of the people sitting in the two booths we'd co-oped for the evening. I was in the first booth with Coras and AB — as was Newberry, but he was serving as our quiz master and doesn't count — because it had the best wifi reception; while everyone else was in the second booth. Needless to say, despite all that, we comprehensively won — I knew almost everything except the answer to the questions about Frozen and AB turned out to know a great deal about Christmas — thereby cementing our reputations for cleverness. At one point, the other booth tried to get me to swap with Rhos but neither of us was having it!
Over breakfast, Gav related an astonishing story from the previous evening — something even he couldn't quite believe had happened. Sometime during the night, Rhos had got up, left their dormitory room, gone into the room next door, woken the guy up who was sleeping in their and told him to stop snoring! As he told us, someone at another table said that they were the person she'd woken, so Gav went over to smooth things over with an apology. When Rhos arrived at breakfast she was slightly embarrassed about the whole thing — she'd apparently only intended to make enough noise to get the guy to stop snoring — but she settled things with the man and everyone seemed OK with the situation.
After eating we headed down to the road we'd followed yesterday, paid to go through the gateway into the ruins, and headed on to the beach.
Once through the ruins — which look like a quay but which are, apparently, actually a bath house — the little creek runs down towards the sea, with a small neck of pebbles allowing access to the western part of the beach and the cliffs above. By this point, the chill of the morning had well and truly burnt off, with the day well on its way to being hot, and we'd all discarded the jackets and jumpers we'd been wearing when we left the tree houses.
The walk up the hill followed a curving path which probably didn't take more than ten minutes to navigate. It reminded me of a warmer version of the South West Coast path in the UK!
Scrambling through the trees and up the path, the rock faces are completely hidden until you reach a small pass, at which point the main wall suddenly appears spread out in front. The rock is fascinating too look at, with long runs of colour and tufa pockets, all capped by scrubby vegetation.
The advanced party arrived early to get some time on slabs before they came into the sun, while the rest of the group decided to have a more leisurely breakfast to allow the main wall with the more challenging routes to come into the shade.
The slabs start at low 5 and gradually increase in difficulty moving down the slope, with the last route being something of a classic: relatively easy with a top section that features a high step and rock-on which, as you move left, reveals a truly spectacular view of the beach.
One nice feature of the crag was the rocky outcrop up by the base of the warm-up slab, putting me at just the right height to watch the others climb some of the more difficult routes on the main wall.
This is definitely my pick of the holiday photos: H on climbing a 6c+ extension — Newberry thought it was closer to 7a+ — to a 6b route. From the chain just below her feet, it's clear that H on the first clip of the top section, just past the anchor of the 6b.
The rest of us moved further down the wall, where I climbed a 6a and, after screwing up a fairly simple sequence and trying to go for a funky double catch, I took my first fall. I was at the third bolt and managed to scuff myself up a bit, but K told me that I'd fallen very elegantly. Annoyed at myself for failing at something quite so simply, I pulled back on and got to the anchor with no trouble at all. The last move on the route was amusing: it ends on a big flake with a substantial gap to the back wall with the anchor point, but it's easy enough to secure the last point.
After doing the 6a, I breezed up the 5c next to it and belayed W on the 6a. He fell at the same point as I did and, even though he warned me it was going to happen, I still ended up two metres in the air, with both of us at almost exactly the same level — not an indignity that happened to Rhos when she was belaying me!
We then moved down the hill and I flashed a 6b on top rope. The route featured an early crux, where the move involved going out to very, very sharp tufa pocket and then up to a crack that ran up a large outthrust block, followed by a sloper on top to transition to a solid rest. All the subsequent moves were powerful, but each featured a good rest point immediately afterwards and the whole thing proceeded very smoothly from that point. The last move to the final pocket was pretty strenuous but, being on top rope, I merely had to check the belayer was happy, go for a victory rattle of the chain, and chuck myself off to send the route.
Some of the others tried the same route shortly after, with only E making any real progress. A couple of the others fell early on the crux, leading to some humorous swings out into a nearby tree. And because they were repeatedly cranking on the sharp pocket, some of them managed to scuff up their hands a treat. Hardly fun.
As the afternoon wore on, E started looking increasingly tired and pale. By mid-afternoon the early party was ready to go and we decamped to a bar on the beach for something to drink and for some people to have a bite to eat. As we walked back along the beach, E announced that she was feeling sick and had to duck into the undergrowth at a couple of points. While the rest of us dawdled, she and C pushed on back to the tree houses with the idea of getting back before she got any sicker.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the problem was caused by her susceptibility to heatstroke — she has had it on the first day of every trip so far — or whether she'd caught the lurgi the pros had had last week. When we got back, we discovered that J, who'd been out for a day earlier than the rest of us, was also suffering, suggesting that E's illness might be more than just a reaction to the temperature.
Supper was rice, a very good bean dish, and chicken for the carnivores. After supper, we had a short impromptu quiz with teams composed of the people sitting in the two booths we'd co-oped for the evening. I was in the first booth with Coras and AB — as was Newberry, but he was serving as our quiz master and doesn't count — because it had the best wifi reception; while everyone else was in the second booth. Needless to say, despite all that, we comprehensively won — I knew almost everything except the answer to the questions about Frozen and AB turned out to know a great deal about Christmas — thereby cementing our reputations for cleverness. At one point, the other booth tried to get me to swap with Rhos but neither of us was having it!
