sawyl | Entries tagged with olympos

The last few mornings have been genuinely chilly, not just by Turkish standards but, with temperatuers in single digits, by English standards for mid-October. Fortunately, although breakfast doesn't start until eight, probably because that's when the bread van arrives, they generally start setting up a good deal early, and the setup involves getting the samovar going and, more importantly, stoking up the wood burner.

The stove is actually a converted oil drum with a flue braised on to it and a little rack on top for toasting bread. The staff fire it when they get up and chuck in some big logs around the time breakfast starts, so if you get there early, it's like sitting next to a nuclear reactor — a blessed relief given the weather — and considerable attention is needed to prevent your toast from turning into a carbonised ruin.

With quite a few of the crowd suffering a recurrence of poor health, the group split in two with the sufferers staying back at base with a plan to climb at the wall behind the tree houses, while the more daring of us headed down to the crag beyond the beach, which the two Toms had scouted out on Wednesday. With some uncertainty over the distance, I set my Garmin going and tracked the walk down. Sure enough, Newberry's internal TomTom was spot on: he estimated two miles and I measured it as three kilometres to the supermarket where we'd stopped the night before. As Coras had said during the night taxi ride, it really was much quicker to walk along the beach than to drive round via the road.

C and I warmed up with mileage on some slabs, inevitably starting with the most difficult one, while AB and H started with a couple of 6s round the corner. Coras was eager to try an 8b extension above one of the slabs but both he and Newberry concluded that it wasn't all that great and their enthusiasm drained away and they moved back to slightly easier stuff.

Coras climbing one of the slab extensions. The route up the tufa was, I think something like 7b to (barely visible) tatty green rope, and maybe 8a to the anchor.

After we'd done a couple of routes, K and W joined us, having got up slightly later and followed Newberry's directions to the crag: walk along the beach, turn left, follow the road to the bridge, and head for the big cliff. Seems to have worked, because they got there raring to go.

Coras redpointing the extension to the extension, while W climbs the first of the slabs — I think it was graded 4, while the others were in the low 5 range. Even though it's only 10:30 in the morning, the routes have already started to come into the sun...

...fortunately, the belay positions were still shaded, giving some relief from the sun which, in stark contrast to the cold start first thing, was really quite hot. The wall behind K and Newberry features a very short 8 which looks like nothing quite so much a brutal boulder problem. Needless to say no-one was greatly minded to attempt it!

While K and W completed the slabs, C and I moved round the corner to do a slabby 5c and a 6b. The 5 had a high first bolt, which I declined to have pre-clipped for me, and featured a hard-to-read middle section where the holds weren't at all obvious. It was actually a pretty easy flash, although I have a feeling C might have decided to top rope it — although I might be doing him a grave mis-service!

H told me to try the 6b which ran up the right hand crack next to the the 5c slab. The route featured a nice start and got tricky and cruxy in the middle — H said she'd popped off — where you had to make a clip from a poor sloper on the left hand. It was sketchier than I'd've liked, but I managed to nail it and stick the next couple of tricky moves to flash the route. I was extremely pleased and it seemed a good not to end the trip on.

W climbing the 5c slab while K belays and C looks on. I pre-clipped the first bolt for W — I'd spurned it for myself, but then I wasn't climbing with my mum and I didn't want K to have to worry about it — but I felt bad about it when he stalled out on the next move, depriving him of the opportunity to put in at least one of the clips on the route.

Despite thinking was done for the day, it turns out I wasn't quite: with W unable to make it up the slab, someone needed to clean the route. So, of course, I volunteered. The route was a positive cruise, and I rethreaded and was back down on the ground in next to no time. And with the sun full on the rock by this point, it felt like a nice way end the climbing part of the holiday.

The crag forms one side of a dry river bed.

On the way back out, we stopped at the truly excellent bakery on the main road where everyone had either biscuits of pastries, with most going back for seconds. Coras and I both went for simits, which, as notorious bagel fan, I liked very much. The place also featured an excellent lavatory, which I used to get changed ready for the beach.

On the walk down, we stopped at the market where I finally picked up a postcard for A — who collects them and whttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rfZ40NhF1WbHyvHha1Jw1WEnhIrpmElggxeHpuJEbOGnGam4ckvST1akCQIOZ4FUGoRtGvxgbLESVmLHJKZzidcESLiV0JhUtGJwvIWIGrqYbRT91H0mdUKhI67-WxIP788xVMlagZhKmyUvSsFLixPZg0B_P7f9mMuupJsL7AZGfH53v6do1Q4uDd4y-qGFI3XP0qGgqEb8TCbzIvmZW63ZllLJY28kzyyTo8iJpq4MMSYfGx6akcjQtBD4ShPgLlWvHwsHjtkRoKTdYY3rxgmcRoycPqayxOLPjaRJ__uwiKSSKuEHsVLdCFoeQzRPueIHYqAZ18c_sSjZmYvcAw-epMELbPtYqv1gn5TUhk0RxaIvC8rw5jweOrj-Q2kq1F0sjhUwNjtA_0JWX7eohG0U2N-S8cVxXM0kWXY3zWXeEybi3alcAx-YmRzAWLxk5ujlDsHckAx74RVV8OFtCtigXcSepRhQRvePCHQaSjiUioZYHBqgdg0rqS3lrhIiMUY4vrnMVikVmQWwOU1XCi48TnfZJEg3JWwo2UaRHgoEZ_HkxQJ4yUHMoOI1TpdafWtcEx38zxkcN6WU5PMXxka5dfYJJBZ6D-jK2bI_rL2zKObxcotiGMEBqZfPNE8v5HResAvpR8nnOxEBpDVEiM8XbpMzIhA_fCw=w1567-h1176-noho has given me orders to get her something. Maybe it's the time or year, or maybe it's the rise of the internet, but almost all the postcards I've seen have been curling and faded and have clearly seen better days. Fortunately, I was able to find a fresh-looking card showing the eternal flames, leaving me feeling as though a great weight has been lifted. (Apparently I don't have to actually post the thing; it is acceptable for me to wait until I get home and drop it in by hand, so at least I don't have to worry about stamps or differentiating a Turkish postbox from a litter bin)

Arriving at the beach, we spotted W & K, who'd gone ahead and were just finishing up after taking a dip. Newberry, H and C decided to stake out a spot in one of the cafes while AH, Coras and I checked out the water. As is all to typical, I stripped off, walked in, and immediately powered out 30-40 metres — I may not be at peak swimming fitness these days, but I'm still a very strong swimmer it seems — where I stopped and trod water waiting for the other two.

A stayed in the shallows, wading out to waist depth, but I wasn't terribly surprised: he's mentioned before that he can't really swim and I seem to remember from last year that he wouldn't really allow the water up beyond chest height. Coras was similar reticent and contented himself with standing in the see and sticking his head in the water; he's mentioned that he gets hot because he's got quite thick hair — something A and I both told him to enjoy while it lasts! — so I guess that explains the manoeuvre. Realising that the others weren't actually going to swim, I struck out for shore, dried myself off, and headed up to the cafe where the others were all firmly ensconced.

While the others favoured a table and food, H and I sat on a swing and stuck with drinks — pomegranate juice and tea respectively — while we wiled away the time. We were both particularly intrigued by the strange little hummingbird-like creatures which kept on visiting the flowers and H encouraged me to try and take a photo of them.

It took the long-distance lens and a couple of attempts but I was able to capture a couple of good close-ups of the little creatures. (Subsequent checking on wikipedia, which seems to be blocked in Turkey, revealed they were hummingbird hawk-moths. Given their distribution, I'm surprised I've never seen one before)

With the sun starting to creep round and the beach beginning to fall into shade, we returned to Kadir's in time to catch AH and J before they left for the airport. They've both got (different) weddings to go to tomorrow, so they needed to fly back tonight to get their in time — although both had tight schedules in the UK, involving night drives and the desperate hope that whoever they were relying on to bring their suits had them ready for them.

We had a gentle evening, with some people still feeling a little subdued. E was up and about even though she felt a little disappointed with her climbing this week, she seemed better than she has been for a while — although she's still lost so much weight that her shorts, which fitted at the start of the holiday, are practically falling off her.

Newberry and Gav had planned to give us a debrief on our performance, but decided to defer it until breakfast tomorrow. That said, Tom did say that E and I were the most improved over the week — I'm pleased given that I've led once since Kalymnos and climbed outdoors not at all — and we got into a useful discussion about our on-sight grade versus the hardest thing we've climbed. Interestingly, my regular on-sight grade and hardest ever grade are very close, indicating that I should be projecting things 2-3 grades harder than anything I'm currently climbing.

I think I'm going to try and follow up on that when I get back: push myself to lead harder climbs and focus on trying to get up into the mid-7s. Because although I'm not really interested in pushing my grade for the sake of it, I'd like to be able to climb harder stuff because it opens up a lot more routes outdoors and means I'm more confortable on stuff that's well within my ability range — like the 6b this morning. I'm acute aware that, although I powered out on a 6a on Tuesday when I was starting to feel rough, I haven't climbed anything this week that has pushed me close to the limits of my stamina or made me feel anything like pumped.

Most people seemed to be feeling a bit sparkier this morning. This might be because AH had some holistic healing from someone yesterday — it seemed to involve the laying on of hands and anointing with oils — or it might be because he was ordered to sit and meditate in the energy spot for half an hour a day, or it might simply be his immune system getting a grip on the dreaded lurgi. Gav, on the other hand, was in the grip of an acute recurrence and wasn't even sure he could make it to crag.

The meditation spot is on a convergence of energy lines. I'm not sure I believe it makes any difference, but others are clearly more determined to give it a try...

With everyone who could eat ready to depart, we set off to the crag above the beach for a second crack at some of the routes there. We warmed up on a couple of easy 5s, the first of which featured a annoying move which I misread somewhat, while the second involved a lot of nice bridging moves. My initial attempt on the second climb was not entirely without incident, although the send was clean. Embarrassingly, I z-clipped the second draw because the first two bolts were absurdly close together. Fortunately, the drag was so massive I noticed immediately and, because the bolts were so close, it was trivial to fix: just reach down and drop the first clip; if it'd been a harder route, I'd've reclipped, but as it was, I just left it and motored on for the flash.

E checks her footwork on a 5 before committing to the next move. To nobody's great surprise, she flashed the route with no trouble whatsoever...

We then moved to a 6a+ and a very short, very bouldery 6b+ along the cliff. With my confidence starting to come back, I powered up the 6a+ as if it was an indoor route, finding a neat early rockover with a gaston to stabilise it, then smearing through the next moves to get to the top in no time at all.

In fact I was so quick, I was able to send the route, lower off, change shoes and fish out my camera in the time it took J to work the initial moves on the 6b+ and begin his second attempt on it. Although it doesn't look like it, he's actually halfway up the route at this point.

Everyone else had a go on the 6a+ but, with the exception of E, who cruised it, everyone else really struggled, including J. The rest of us left him to it and moved down to the 6b+. W made a couple of stabs at it, but couldn't get beyond the third move. I hopped on and worked the opening moves, coming up with a wide bridge that neither of the others — despite being much taller than me — were able to get. I then moved up to match hands on the tufa to the right — J has his left foot on it in the photo — complete the big rockover, and motor up the rest of the route. Feeling tired, I didn't commit to the last move — a nasty fingery thing — but instead shamelessly pulled on the draws to get to the top so that I could rethread and strip the route.

Despite feeling a little tired, I promised Newberry I'd try a 6b on top rope before calling it a day. I made a horrible mess of the short, bouldery first section, which I comprehensively misread, before really settling in and making light work of the second part of the route. I didn't do the whole thing clean because I didn't want to rip up my hands on the sharp first part again, but with hindsight, I should've dropped back down and restarted, because I'm sure I could've sent the route cleanly.

It was dusk by time we headed down from the crag and we double-timed it back to the tree houses to get ourselves there in time for supper. I found C was back before me, so I grabbed the key and had a quick shower before rushing down for food.

At 20:00 we clambered into a taxi which had been laid on to take us to the eternal flames of Yanartaş. After 20-30 minutes on the road, we stopped at a market to allow people to buy water and to allow J to rest his stomach (and to move to the overspill car with the guide). Coras laughed and told us that he and Newberry had walked here and that the town was actually just down the beach, by the crag they'd walked to yesterday, and although it seemed like we'd come a long way, it was actually only two miles from Kadir's.

We resumed our journey, eventually arriving at the chimaera site. We got a comprehensive description of the place in Turkish from the taxi driver — not the most helpful thing in the world, given our poor language skills — before setting out up the mountain to the place of the flames. The torchlight climb was amazing, mainly because there was almost no light pollution and the Milky Way was lit up like a dramatic scene above us. The flames, when they eventually appeared, were interesting, but not nearly as impressive as the sky.

The gas flows from a series of crevices in the rock, creating a series of burning pockets. The guide had come prepared with marshmallows, which we obligingly toasted over the eternal fires. I've got to say, they tasted pretty damn good.

Interesting though the flames were, they were just flames, and those of us who were tired — E lay down on the rocks like some sort of Wagnerian Brünnhilde — felt that the visit went on long past the point where it had been interesting, but we were still obliged to wait for the guide. After half an hour or so, we all trooped back down the mountain, loaded ourselves into the taxi, and endured the 45 minute drive back to the tree houses, arriving well after I'd normally have been in bed...

Woke up feeling surprisingly OK, given the state I'd been in when I went to bed. It felt like the temperature I'd had the night before had burnt itself out overnight, leaving me feeling post-viral and achy, with no desire whatsoever to eat breakfast. The others gradually emerged and we came up with plans for our scheduled rest day while the two Toms cemented their notion of walking down to the beach to check out a new climbing area.

While we were talking, the hitchers arrived to pick up their hire equipment. After initially selecting a harness with so much slack in it, she was probably going to slip out, the woman went back and upgraded to a smaller one before returning to sit by the wood burner while the others fueled up for breakfast. Talking to her, it became clear that (a) they'd managed to blag their equipment out of the activity centre by claiming that they were climbing with the English group; and (b) they weren't quite as clueless as we'd feared and they'd done some, if not all that much, indoor climbing.

After breakfast, Newberry and Coras set out to explore while Gav told us that he was going to wait until midday when the sun would be off the wall behind the camp before doing anything. The idea was that the people who were up to it could do a spot of climbing and, because the crag was close to Kadir's, they'd never be more than five minutes away from a lavatory. An important consideration given the detailed information we'd been given on the state of AH's bowels — never have I been on a holiday where I've known quite so much about other peoples' bowel movements or where the Bristol Stool Scale formed such a key component of every converstation.

I went to the crag to do some belaying, but AB quickly decided it wasn't for him and we headed off the the beach instead. Along the way we bumped into the Toms and their hitch hikers — both of whom were surprisingly undamaged — before hitting the sea for a brief swim. Afterwards, I covered myself in sunblock and loafed around while A read. We saw the E and H in the distance, walking back to the road, but by the time we spotted them they were too far away to easily intercept, so we let them go.

On the way back to camp, we explored the ruins of the ancient Hellenic town of Olympos. This contained a number of fine, if slightly vandalised sarcophagi and routes through the scrub to some historic locations. By far the best was the path up to the castle — a bit of a struggle for someone who wasn't feeling well and hadn't eaten for 24 hours — which proved to have a spectacular view both of the bay and of the ruins and of the valley.

Even as I was going to bed last night, it was clear that things were not going well: C, my roommate, was feeling ill and, thanks to the thin partitions, between the rooms, it was evident that someone else was busy being horribly sick elsewhere in the block. Sure enough, dawn and breakfast confirmed my suspicions: C was still in bed; E was nowhere to be seen; K said that W had had a bad night and she wasn't feeling too good either; AH was down with d&v; and J was still suffering from the illness that had struck him down the previous day.

Very thin on the ground, AB, H and I accompanied Rhos, Gav and Newberry to a crag close by the road to the beach where the other group had gone on day one. I told Gav to look on the bright side: he could now tell people that their holidays gave people one-to-one tuition with the UK's best climbers. I managed to get most of the way up a 6b+ before messing up and popping off. Around mid-afternoon, Coras arrived with a slightly healthier looking J. I spent the rest of the day being belayed by Coras, who was on a rest day, working a 6a+ which I should've been able to send but which I kept on making more and more of a mess of.

Rhos came very, very close to flashing this 8a+ monster...

While Rhos was up on the route, we got talking to a couple of hitch hikers who'd wandered up to the crag to ask about the options for climbing in the Olympos area. Newberry suggested they ask at activity centre at Kadir's, where they could hire gear and a get a guide for the day, although the hikers were clearly angling for one of us to offer to take them out for free.

While Rhos finished her route, the rest of us stepped across the road for food and drink at one of the restaurants — the poor server struggled with the fact that we (a) were very disorganised; and (b) didn't speak any Turkish, but she patiently put up with us and sorted out our food order like a master. I had chips — truly superb — while the others had a mixture of things form spaghetti to kebabs, before we returned to the wall.

Gav offered to clean a really nice 6c, even though by this point it was in full sunlight.

AB looks contemplatively up at the wall. He was watching a Faroese guy trying to climb a 7b only to get spat off by the top section of tufas.

Needless to say, the 7b was on the day's tick list and after watching the other guy fall off at the same point multiple times, it was time for A to show him how it was done.

The first time, A came off because he shot blind for a pocket without getting his heel on. The second time, he used a heel hook on the righthand tufa to keep himself stable while he slapped for the pocket with a huge power scream and sent the route.

AB clipping the anchor on a 7b. The whole experience was enlivened by a guy who dug out his drone and spent some time capturing footage of us climbing in the cave.

After returning to the tree houses for supper, I was forced to confront the fact that I wasn't feeling well. My stomach was a bit gurgly and I felt very cold all of a sudden — and not just because the temperature had dropped after sunset. Feeling pretty terrible, I went back to the room and shivered my way to sleep.

Got 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.

Looking along the coast to the east towards the Taurus mountains.

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.

Looking back from the beach towards the Olympos ruins. There were a few free-ranging dogs wandering the road and the beach. They were too well fed to be feral and some of them were wearing collars, but they definitely weren't being minded by anyone and seemed content to wander along by themselves. These two wandered up to the crag with us and one of them hung around for much of the day, probably hoping we'd find some food for it.

The route up to the crag was via a path on the western end of the beach.

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!

Looking back at the beach from the costal path to the crag.

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 main routes are on the wall directly in front, but there are some fine warm-up slabs on the face to the left.

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.

Gav consults the guidebook while everyone else looks on. One of the dogs is just about visible next to W, having decided to head down the slope in pursuit of a pair of Russian walkers.

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.

Even Coras was stoked about climbing the classic slab. And as a bonus, it was easy enough that he didn't even have to change out of his approach shoes...

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.

Carefully rolling the right hand over into a sharp slot...

...before dropping off the route!

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!

Up early and down to sit in the square surrounding the fire pit, all the better to use the wifi. At eight, they started serving breakfast and I settled down with plenty of bread and honey, some excellent Turkish tea — they brew it in a samovar — a few bits of tomato, and a boiled egg for extra protein. I decided not to go for a fresh omelette, despite being assured of their excellence because I suspected mushrooms were involved in their preparation. The others gradually appeared, as did an increasing crowd of other breakfasters. By the time Coras arrived, people were queuing out of the door — something Gav assured us was a consequence of a party & climbing festival over the weekend to mark the end of summer.

After getting our gear together, we walked down the road a kilometre or so and peeled off down a river bed. Once there, the hardcore crowd went off with the two Toms while the others — including me — went with Gav and Rhoslyn into a little canyon.

After Gavin ran through the basis details of rethreading — something I haven't done for a couple of years — we started racking up a series of 5s. I was pleased to discover that I could still lead climb and, after a slightly rough start, my lead belay skills were still up to standard.

E practices rethreading on an anchor placed low down at the far end of the canyon to allow people to practice before hitting the routes.

During the course of the morning, C made a grim discovery. Leading a long, easy 5 on the other side of the canyon from the slab the rest of us were leading, he came up over a ledge to discover a huge quantity of blood. He made a joke about it — he's a firefighter with a gallows sense of humour — but came down immediately realising that something was very wrong. Gavin connected the dots and realised that the story he'd heard about a young woman being seriously injured during the festival the day before related to the route C had just climbed. After we returned to base, Rhos subsequently discovered the woman who’d taken the fall on the route had hit her head on the ledge and hadn’t survived; terribly sad news.

W on one of the slabs on the opposite side to the canyon. The routes started easy and gradually cranked up in difficulty as we moved right, ending with a nice 5c at the far end.

Not realising the worst of it, we carried on and AH on-sighted a newly bolted route he reckoned was around 6a+.

AH on-sighting his route. It's not nearly as overhung as it looks here and there are portions where it's actually positively slabby.

E repeated the route and, despite some initial nerves, I also led it — wearing my helmet and warning Rhos that I thought I might fall. To my surprise but no-one else's, I flashed it, with only the smallest of concerns on the crux — and that was more a worry about blowing my flash than a genuine problem with my climbing.

What's like to be belayed by a top British climber? A whole lot wackier than you might expect!

On the way back from the crag we wandered up and down the road to the beach in search of smoothies. Close to the gate that gives access to the ruins of the Hellenic town, we found a place that served fresh orange and pomegranate juice while you waited. Once we’d juiced up, we walked back up the road and stopped one of the very few open bars — the season has very much finished — and caught up on events of the day.

We returned to Kadir’s for supper — lots of rice, lentils, and an excellent green bean dish — and a round of Cards Against Humanity. Newberry did extremely well, as might be expected, with H picking up most of the rest of the tricks. I won one, as did AB with AH picking a couple, and the rest going home empty handed. A fun way to end the evening...

After parkrun, my sister came round and we spent a gentle morning catching up. She's got a job interview coming up, so I spent some time helping her lay out the basic elements of the presentation she's got to give. With the bare bones of that sorted, we sped down to Central Six to allow me to pick up some essential toiletries before splitting up for lunch.

At one, she returned with one of my nephews in tow and we went to the airport. I was a little worried about checking in because I'd failed to get the online version to work, but everything was absolutely fine.
Passing through security, I got stuck behind a family who were trying to convince the screeners that they the vast quantities of orange juice they had in their hand luggage for their diabetic son were somehow exempt from the liquids ban. They didn't seem to be having much success, but I didn't see how things ended up because the screeners took pity in the rest of us and started moving us past the blockage.

After an uneventful time in departures, I went to the gate. Our scheduled takeoff time approached with no sign of boarding. Our scheduled time arrived and passed, with us still sitting in the gate lounge. I texted E, already in transit but scheduled to arrive just before me, telling her I was going to be late, and waited to be let on to the plane.

Eventually, an hour behind schedule, we were onboard and ready to go. The pilot described the reason for the delay as a minor glitch in one of the engines - the cowling had been open as we boarded - but given the much louder than normal racket from the port side, it was clearly more than a mere glitch.

Arriving in Antalya an hour late, I texted E who confirmed they were waiting for me in the arrivals area and hadn't gone on ahead even though we'd passes the scheduled departure time of the taxi. I found the right baggage reclaim belt and began what I'd expected to be a short wait. Some 30 minutes later, the carousel still hadn't started and those of us who'd arrived from Birmingham were still waiting. Eventually, the cases started to appear - I was lucky because my bag came through relatively early - and was through customs and out I was out into the arrivals area, where I saw E and AB waiting for me.

The last remaining member of the group arrived at precisely the same time and we went over for the waiting minibus taxi and began the long drive from Antalya to Olympos. I used the time to catch up with AB, my roommate from last year, whom I hadn't seem since Kalymnos. The transfer took around an hour and a half and featured a section of road that was so dry, we seemed to dissolve in a dust storm.

Eventually, we reached Kadir's Treehouses where Tom and Gav were waiting for us. I was paired up with C and we were assigned a charming room in the upper floor of a group of four rooms, with K&W next door and the two Andy's downstairs. The beds were excellent and I was delighted to get into mine after a long, long, long day of travel.