Ascensões em Palionisos por Lee Cujes

Cleaning up an old wet dog. It was still a bit damp and gripping today. Ah, slabs.

Keeping with the slab theme of the day. About the blankest looking piece of rock on the sector.

Old nemesis route from last trip, cleaned up first go placing the draws.

Fell on the start (dear oh dear) and lowered off.

Hard start, and hard middle (fo shizzle).

Sneaker-sight to check on the anchor. All good.

Pulled out all the tricks to get this done in soapy conditions. Chalking and brushing holds on lead, drying footholds etc. Warmed me up nicely!

Onsight to crux, then actually spent a long time figuring out a way I could do it. The standard dual pinch beta did not work for me at all! Unlocked with typical Lee dyno.

Fluffed the crux.

The needle hit empty and snapped off. Kalymnos 2015: done!

Requires hard pulling, even to get off the deck. Powerful.

Gearing it up, testing the shoulder.

Two years and 16 days ago I tore my shoulder on this route. Knocked me out of climbing for several months. Today, after much pre-climb therabanding, arm-windmills, hangboarding and strange looks, I got back on and sent it. Savina, I gingerly salute you.

Repeat. Harder than when I originally did it as lots of tufa blobs have sadly snapped off. Solid climbing all the way.

More powerful than its neighbours.

Repeat. Gear retrieval.

Wet soap!

Wet soap conditions. Quite the challenge today. [2]

Short, weird, powerful, Swedish dairy product.

Where'd my tick go on this? Onsighted on first visit in 2011 when the Garden was still Secret.

New crag, so had to check it out. Will not be rushing back.

Quite deceptive - looks easy, but not so easy on redpoint.

A good way to get over the jetlag. Couldn't clip the third and didn't want to deck on my first day.

Fully wet soap conditions, good for a laugh. Good Eiger training? Almost managed it, too.

Nice and soapy today. Yum.

Had been climbing earlier in the day at another sector. Came out here for the afternoon and jumped on this without re-warming up. Easy steep moves to start and I felt something go in my shoulder. Oh shit. Damnit. Time to rest and hope it heals up quick. [edit: it did not, I was out for months]

Made it right to the top - last bolt - when the fat tufa I grabbed decided to shead its skin.

Tired, but managed to battle through. Cool! Aris told me this one was downgraded from 8a to keep the crowds off it [3]

Be prepared for some sloper action on the crux!

Bridging up tufa curtains. Climbs a bit like a trad route.

Through the crux and most of the way up the fat tufa on the OS, laughed myself off. Ended up doing at least 5 more moves than I thought.

Well worth doing, and could have been a mega classic. The bugger is that the routes are too close together here so you don't know what's "in" and when routes share holds you always feel like you're cheating. 7b+ is suggested, I think 7a+ given how people will climb it. Hold busted off on first attempt [2].

Stood on rockmelon sized tufa blob at end of crux which parted company from the wall. I'm losing onsights, but doing my bit for the cleaning effort at this new cliff.

Desperate - and I mean desperate - slab climbing. Owen did amazingly to onsight this. 6c+ = the nails grade.

May end up being good, but needs a lot more cleaning (i.e. a proper clean with hammer and large brush) and about three more grades, srsly. Dangerous fall on slab potential as well.

I guess this was the least clean line here but it offered a good challenge and a fantastic kneebar in a hole which you must commit to with no hands and then do a sit up and stretch to high holds. Top is chipped unfortunately, they should have simply placed the anchor lower. [2]

Ripped a tufa knob off and plunged onto the second bolt. Then went bolt to bolt.

A very definite crux, possibly tricky to onsight. I did it wrong. Start is mega classic.

An arching line of blobs leading to a corner, then headwall. Felt fairly solid all the way.

Non stop tufa blobs

Wow, the tufa curtain part of this was hard! Wrestling with a 1m x 5cm tufa blade. Beast.

Climbs a bit differently (and is harder) than first impressions.