Kaly Musings

Photo: Patmos 30 miles away and the granite island of Ikaria 30 further. Looks like a lot of rock out there!

We have been here 10 weeks now and I have clocked 196 routes so far, which averages three a day for the whole trip. The weather has been the best I can remember - not that my memory is that good, but the cliffs seem drier than the last two Decembers, and I think we have had three or four damp days. When we arrived back in October the place was the busiest I have ever seen it (a victim of its own success) - it was really rather unpleasant, I think we may come a little later next year to avoid the rabble.

Currently I am on about 480 'unique ticks' (approaching 30% of the total) on the place and 99% of them have been great. Only three or four have been verging on 'poor' though these were mostly new routes that will doubtless clean up.

I suspect that there are other Kalys out there on the horizon, but off course a destination needs a certain number of routes (maybe 250+) to make it worth a visit by itinerant climbers - and 250 routes is a lot of hard work! Of course development here continues apace - the photo on the right shows one of Claud Idou's recent crags - looks like five lines of about 16 clips each - should keep us busy next trip!