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Ivory Tower
Sep. 18th, 2016 09:52 pmGot up early to discover I'd been eaten alive by mosquitos during the night. Fortunately the bites are ugly rather than itchy so I think I'll probably survive unscatched. Went for a walk through Masouri while Andrew, my roommate, got himself up, and met the others for breakfast in the restaurant below the hotel.
As we were fuelling for day at the crag, Tom dropped by to tell us that the plan was to spend the day at Ivory Tower. We walked up to one of the ubiquitous scooter hire shops and turned right to walk up the approach path. The view from the base of the crag was pretty amazing, with clear views of Emporios and Kalavros close by and Leros in the distance.
On arrival, we got ourselves established, consulted the guidebook, and waited while Tom and Gav picked some easy routes to get us going.
We warmed up on some easy slabs, did a slightly more tricky 6a-6b+ routes. Eve made pretty light work of bloc volant:
Andrew, who reckoned himself a 6c climber outdoors, easily on-sighted sunrise (part 1) graded 7a and came within one move of on-sighting the craic at a heroic 7b+. Here he is, taking full advantage of a particularly good rest:
We had to keep a careful eye on the local goat population. Given half a chance, they will eat anything edible left unattended and they're canny enough to wait until you're belaying before diving into your rucksack in search of a snack.
After a solid first day of climbing, we hit the beach where we met up with Ben West, Cailean Harker and others, relaxing after their first day of climbing. After Izzy, Tom and I went for a swim, someone came up with the suggestion that we use our rest day to swim to Telendos. The distance looks pretty trivial — probably no more than a kilometre — but which may be a bit risky given the levels of boat traffic in the area and which probably isn't an ideal rest day activity!
We went for supper at the Aegean Restaurant at the southern end of town. We were joined by Cal and Jake, but Eve was missing after going down with heat stroke. The food was very good. The vegetarian option was a mixed plate of various different Greek veg dishes, all of which were extremely nice.
Over supper Tom and Gav went through their assessment of our climbing, based on today's observations — despite having known them and been taught by them for years, this was the first chance they'd had to see some of us climb outdoors. They came up with some recommendations, based partly on the routes that people were interested, and suggested mixing specific hard routes with work to maximise milage on the rock for those of us who needed it.
As we were fuelling for day at the crag, Tom dropped by to tell us that the plan was to spend the day at Ivory Tower. We walked up to one of the ubiquitous scooter hire shops and turned right to walk up the approach path. The view from the base of the crag was pretty amazing, with clear views of Emporios and Kalavros close by and Leros in the distance.
On arrival, we got ourselves established, consulted the guidebook, and waited while Tom and Gav picked some easy routes to get us going.
We warmed up on some easy slabs, did a slightly more tricky 6a-6b+ routes. Eve made pretty light work of bloc volant:
Andrew, who reckoned himself a 6c climber outdoors, easily on-sighted sunrise (part 1) graded 7a and came within one move of on-sighting the craic at a heroic 7b+. Here he is, taking full advantage of a particularly good rest:
We had to keep a careful eye on the local goat population. Given half a chance, they will eat anything edible left unattended and they're canny enough to wait until you're belaying before diving into your rucksack in search of a snack.
After a solid first day of climbing, we hit the beach where we met up with Ben West, Cailean Harker and others, relaxing after their first day of climbing. After Izzy, Tom and I went for a swim, someone came up with the suggestion that we use our rest day to swim to Telendos. The distance looks pretty trivial — probably no more than a kilometre — but which may be a bit risky given the levels of boat traffic in the area and which probably isn't an ideal rest day activity!
We went for supper at the Aegean Restaurant at the southern end of town. We were joined by Cal and Jake, but Eve was missing after going down with heat stroke. The food was very good. The vegetarian option was a mixed plate of various different Greek veg dishes, all of which were extremely nice.
Over supper Tom and Gav went through their assessment of our climbing, based on today's observations — despite having known them and been taught by them for years, this was the first chance they'd had to see some of us climb outdoors. They came up with some recommendations, based partly on the routes that people were interested, and suggested mixing specific hard routes with work to maximise milage on the rock for those of us who needed it.
