Sardinia

Suppose that I had better say something about Sardinia given it is now two weeks since I got back.

Overall it was pretty good but more of a family holiday with some climbing thrown in but regardless of that it is always nice to go somewhere different and do some climbing with a good bunch of people. Plenty of coffee was drunk and if possible I came back even more of a coffee freak than I was before I went, a horse steak was consumed (very tasty it was too) and I also maintained my onsight level at 6a+ which was pretty pleasing in it's own way.

Sardinia (or more specifically Cala Gonome) has been on the climbing map for a while now - a point that is painfully obvious at the more popular crags which have suffered from the traffic of a thousand punters - the worst examples by far being Fuili and Biddiriscottai (aka the Cave of Polish). If you take the time to explore the less popular areas however then the odd gem emerges such as Margheddie - home of the classic if somewhat scantily bolted 6a+ slab climb "Nomadi" that deserves everyone of its 3 stars. Get that 20 minute walk in sent, do Biberon as a warm up and then get on it - you might not thank me for it at the time but you will afterwards - trust me on this.

As I have written elsewhere one of my aims for this year was to get 6b sent (preferably onsight) by the end of the year. To this effect I jumped on "I wanna hold your hand" at La Poltrona and was sent packing with very little fuss by it! Now maybe this is a particularly hard instance of 6b but it felt like the living end of hard at my level of experience - in other words f***ing desperate. In mitigation I hadn't warmed up properly in any way shape or form but even so it didn't make or break the route getting sent - I would have gotten a couple of moves further had I been warmed up but it would still have sent me packing in the end. In contrast the "escape route" - the route splits at about half way into the aforementioned 6b and a 6a called L'Eremita - was a walk in the park. OK the final section was a bit exposed and it probably would put the living fear into a 6a leader but it was still easy in comparison and that, as much as anything, highlighted just how much of a step up 6b seems to be. Still I seem to remember 6a+ felt pretty desperate at one stage and they don't seem quite as bad now...

Anyway Sardinia is not just about limestone - there is other rock there too in the form of Basalt and Granite. The basalt is located more towards the south west of the island which looks really funky and weird from the pictures I have seen but the north is all granite - huge crags of the stuff but it is predominantly climbed clean or as we know it trad style.

The exception to this is Capo Testa - now this place is like being on the moon or something with the truly bizarre shapes that the granite has formed - it is worth visiting it just to see these but the climbing is rather excellent too for those interested in pursuing such options. One word of advice - don't bother trying to climb it once the sun has hit it as this will inevitably lead to a lot of swearing and the like with next to no upward motion being achieved. I speak from experience here and had the rant that accompanied me being lowered off a very slippery 5c+ been recorded I have no doubt that it would have gone global on YouTube much to my embarassment and everybody elses amusement by now!!

I am Jack's complete lack of fortune...

For the last four years or so Tuesday night has been crib night - head to the Sheaf with the dog and meet up with Mike to have a pint or two and a few games of crib. Now to make the game that little bit more exciting we play for money - at 50p to the winner on the night and a further £2 if you win all 5 games these are not the sort of stakes which will necessitate an offshore bank account anytime soon but they still add that little bit of competition to proceedings. Anyway two weeks ago was the first time in the 4 odd years that we have been playing that I had to hand over the whole £2.50 and it hurt - regardless of what I tried it was just not happening - I was suffering from the dogs luck big time.

Fast forward two weeks and the dogs luck was still haunting me with a vengeance - comprehensively beaten in the first 4 games it was not looking good but you live in hope of getting that one game to avoid paying out that extra £2 and more importantly not suffering the humiliation of back to back drubbings. So it is into the fifth game - the one crucial game required to avoid the whitewash and I actually get a good hand - now there is still a long way to go but this is a marked improvement on what has preceeded it! Possibly, just possibly my luck might be changing for the better.

Now it was at this point I looked down and realised that my luck had not changed for the better - it had just got a whole lot worse. The dog - that finest specimen of an Albanian Rat Hound known to man has just finished puking his guts up on the floor of the pub - two huge piles of vomit that bore more than a passing resemblance to a pair of badly cooked sponges. After that I suppose that it goes without saying really that I didn't win the fifth game.

Kalymnos

Just what was needed following a summer that seemed to be wet when ever I thought about getting out climbing - a trip to the sport climbing mecca that is Kalymnos. To say that I was woefully unfit before I went out there would be an understatement - the last serious climbing that I had done was a long weekend in the Lakes at the beginning of August which did involve a fair degree of climbing but also a fair degree of rain as well. In between that there was a day at a new crag near Turningstone Edge route checking with Fiend, an afternoon on the Burbage boulders in far from ideal conditions on one of the infrequent dry and sunny days that the summer gave up and a couple of sessions at the Climbingworks all pointed to a trip that was going to hard bloody work.

In the end it went fantastically well - I stuck mainly to slabs, threw in a few vertical wall routes and studiously avoided anything that was overhanging and just climbed as well as I think I have ever climbed. Thirty routes in 5 days of climbing at 6 different crags, a new best onsight at 6a+ (consolidated over of the week) and a couple of big whippers too. Add to that getting adopted at the airport by Sarah and Rupert (a great bloke as well as a sick hard climber) and it all added up to one of the best trips I have done in a long time. Get in there!

The one slight disappointment was that I didn't get on a 6b which was what I had hoped to do as my ultimate aim but I am off to Sardinia in less than a week and if I am climbing at about the same level as I did in Kalymnos then it will happen.

Most of the routes were excellent - there were a couple of exceptions but I will gloss over that and concentrate on those that really impressed me.

Damokles 6a (Kasteli) - not a truly classic route but worth mentioning just for the crux - just hang in there and work out the sequence on thin crimps.

Skorpios 6a (Syblegades - East Face) - intricate route finding up the wall made this a real pleasure to get in the bag - another route that is never hard but you have to persevere to unlock it.

Nauticaa Nausica 6a+ (Odessey) - probably my favourite climb of the week as it just took me to a dimension where I rarely put myself - total commitment above a bolt where there was as good a chance of taking a nasty fall as sticking the move. A grim collection of slopers which all point is the wrong direction with the odd chicken head to relieve the pressure occasionally but basically total balls out climbing once half height is reached with a hugely welcome easing off at the top as I hadn't taken enough quickdraws.

Pillar of the Sea 6a+ (Kasteli) - a real classic in every sense. Never hard but has a couple of sections that really test out just how much you trust in your footwork and your body positioning and then it gets a bit stepper and before you know it the chain is in sight.

Also worth mentioning even though I didn't get them cleanly:

Oreads 6a+ (Poets) - sustained and a pity I grabbed a bolt in sheer desperation after getting the sequence going for the clipping hold completely wrong but I could see no way out other than take a whipper that was going to hurt in all likelihood - discretion being the better part of valour and all that. Definitely on the list to go and do properly next time.

Drama 6a+ (Syblegades - West Face) - my first attempt at 6a+ and a bit of a pity as I went for the clip too soon off a really painful hold when I would probably have had it in the bag had I stopped for a few seconds and made the next two moves to the huge jug instead and clipped from there. A learning experience but a slightly painful lesson all the same.