Ascents as sport by o_g

The second pitch is a classic. It took about 1 hour exactly to walk into the top of the route. Hardest moves are probably on pitch 1, but pitch 2 is very sustained technical off vertical wall climbing.

Would be classic if it didn't fight for independence with Elies at the crux. On-sight fight foiled at the crux. Tried to go direct. At the crux, the bolts are one foot left of your left hip, and their is a ticked sidepull jug for the right hand at 2pm. When you grab it, a bolt on Elies is at your right elbow. So it's all a bit compressed at the crux.... Easily second go.

Another great addition. Bouldery start, with a committing deadpoint to a blind sloping dish that luckily had good texture. Then an excellent broccoli slab to a rest below the steep finish. Save some biceps strength for the anchor clip, or better, look for a knee bar.

Good addition. Felt brutally hard on the shared top section where it steepens and the holds are polished. Still hot from the walk up, and immediately covered in a sheen of sweat, it was a slippery flash pumped battle to the chain.

Another failed on-sight, but a good battle fought. Went too direct at the high crux and pumped off. Pretty full on route really. Every possible hold is plastered in chalk and there is a lack of good rests (for my level of fitness anyway....).

First day of cooler northerly conditions. Went for the on-sight but badly misread the top. No problem second go. First and last thirds excellent, middle third detracts.

Good climb. Start felt a bit goey as a warm up. Clipped an early bolt of a mono.

Putting the draws on and showing rest beta for Roger Parkyn glorious ascent. He ignored my rest beta, and almost triumphed, grinding to a halt at the high arete. I enjoyed watching him learning on the fly how to clean draws of a steep route. A particular highlight was when he managed to get his shoelace bow caught on a quickdraw and was stuck hanging horizontally. I was impressed with the good condition of the climb given the many thousands of ascents since I climbed it a dozen years ago. Still a banger.

Warm up continuation.

Pleasant.

Was feeling cooked, so dogged up to see if I could work out an efficient sequence for the crux. All sorted. This route tends to bruise my fingers and thumbs from having to really mash them into a couple of holds.

The first ten metres of steep tufa climbing is classic. Where the angle eases, it's still good climbing to the chains, but much easier, maybe 6a+?.

The cave at half height reduces the quality I think. Four or five metres of scramble getting into it, then easy to walk 5 metres left to get a look at the holds to exit the cave. The crux is the headwall above the cave. Has a bit move of small holds at the end of the crux to reach a bucket. Caught me, and I think would catch a few people.

Had to pull very hard on the crux.

Lovely route. First half requires some route finding up lots of positive big pockets. Fell on the thin face crux on the on-site (along with a lot of others going by the mass of chalk and show rubber at the crux). Found a sequence and did well to send second go.

Seconded Roger to clean as a warm up. Not sustained, but a long atmospheric route from the bottom to the top of the crag.

Enjoyed this one. Lots of locking off good positive jugs.

My anticipated to the death on-sight fight lasted about 1.5 metres, ending in predictable failure on the steep bouldery start. Reading other comments, apparently people use something called a "knee bar", which sounds like cheating. I need to study the tactical genius of Parkyn. He is useless at spotting knee bars, but I had just seen him somehow manoeuver his way to the head of the queue on DNA and get to run a convenient top rope lap on someone else's rope, which was a remarkable effort. After a second failure on the start, I solved it but pulling on a quickdraw. The wall above is excellent, a little thin and sharp on a couple of moves, but engaging. Felt a little run out by Kalymnos standards, but safe falls.

Excellent warm up, climbing a juggy crack like feature.

Apparently I have done this before, and thought it "good". I'm upgrading it to very good. Perhaps the 10 years of traffic have smoothed some prickly holds, or perhaps I'm now more easily pleased. I made the crux hard for myself, by reading the best sequence of good one pad sidepulls with some hip twists using two obvious two pad flat 45 degree footers that were glistening glassily, and deciding that my trust level was low and I would revert to some good old fashioned front on mingging crimping.

Banger. Great rock up a juggy tufa flow to arm bar rest below crux steepening. Drop a gear and commit to the sustained and sequency section above. Parkyn had the nerve to stop to chalk up in the middle of the crux, where I had just had to sprint to the rest.

I remember nothing, other than it was great.

Some corally holds down low, but nice spaced in cut holds up high. All these routes are longer than they look to be from the ground.

Quick afternoon sugar rush in the shade. As the season winds down, there were "only" 36 climbers on Alani Wall and maybe 76 on the whole crag. One of the locals said 2 weeks before she had counted over 110 people at the whole crag. So elbow room increasing at the most popular crag on the island.

Had to try hard, very hard. Felt harder than the 6c+ two routes to the right. Thought I was off for three moves on the thin black wall at half height, and was on a close run countdown timer on a clip higher up. The low clips (where the fence could be a factor in a fall are off good holds).

The initial steep bouldery wall is easier than it appears, and the thin wall up high is technical and thoughtful.

Real rope stretcher. Got to witness an amazing fight to the chains effort on the route to the left from a lady trying her first 6a and giving it everything. Great to see.

This wall always delivers.

Ended up finishing up the extension on the route to the right. Great long pitch.

Great Route. A little polished, but still well worthwhile. I found a couple of sections very hard for the grade. Was also struggling with sore finger and thumb pads from squeezing some miserable crimps earlier in the day.

New route, not in my 2019 guide, so just set sail without knowing anything about it. Sweet climbing on pocketed tufa flow, to sustained thin headwall up high. Technical footwork and endurance on small holds needed for the headwall, which I didn't have. Great Route.

Excellent reachy climbing between spaced jugs, except for the difficult to read crux sequence where there is some T Rex moves on slopey pinches. Easily 2nd shot.

Thin bouldery start (that I fell off). Nice long arete in good position up high. Does feel a little contrived keeping to the arete though.

Quality reduced by the last 10m of rambling slab. Excellent first part. Lots of technical shallow pocket sequences between good rests.

Good value off vertical journey.

Worth the long wait. Climbed as single pitch (needs two or three long slings to manage rope drag). Felt hard for the grade, but brilliant positions. Crux was rapping off while using Rogers MegaJul. God I hate the thing. Roger wouldn't let me throw it into the jungle, so I had to throw it away onto a gravel path so Roger could retrieve it. I then offered him 100 euro to buy it off him so that I could smash it with a rock 'office space printer style'. He isn't selling. He has two and seems to insist his multi pitch partners use one. It's some form of pycopathy where he enjoys inflicting pain.

Climbed the first pitch (to anchors under the 7b). Tidy.

Had a play while waiting for other routes to become available. Sustained and difficult to read small pebble climbing.

Great climbing, but feels a bit awkward as to which holds are in and which are out.

Cool route.

Not sure how I've never tried this before. It's pretty awesome. Fell at the reachy crux on the onsight. Took a fair bit of work sitting on the rope to find a sequence that worked for me. I ended up using left hand Gaston, high feet, right hand up to jug at 11 o'clock.

Had done the start before as part of the 20. The low corner is pretty cruxy and committing.

A good addition.

Cool climbing. The slab move and the hanging corner are topnotch, the middle third is a bit rambly

Memorable route. Fell of the boulder start. Stemmy palmmy cornering up high. Cool sector.

Had a crack at the insight, but blew it. Crux felt pretty tricky for 7a. I probably missed something.