2018 Review.

2018 Review. Kalymnos Resole.

Its been an interesting and emotional year.

After the end of my relationship with Themi, the end of the reason for coming here really, followed closely by the sinus and septum reconstruction surgery in January, the following 2 or 3 months were a dark and insular period of reflection and soul searching.

A few key decisions were made. The potential embarrassment of coming here for love, only to return to the UK with my tail between my legs, as I have seen others do....... well, I can cope with that. 

So, I would look at selling and relocating. Where to call Home? Scotland with the kids... Spain? Camper-van again? That was uncertain. But the seeds of a plan were forming. 

As for Kalymnos Resole. Themi was a big part of that. We really did it for 2 reasons, something for me to do, and to finance the ‘Argos house and family’ over the winter periods, which it did, though all our profits were always gone by February. I also think the sinus issues were made worse by the rubber dust, so I decided to pretty much reduce the work to a minimum, focus on my recovery and my climbing instead while I worked out what to do. In essence, I decided not to decide, to see what happened......

Rockfax. 

I keep a logbook, an on-line climbing diary on UK Climbing, which is the same team that own Rockfax. Turned out that they had been using my log for information on routes here on the island. Chris’s Craggs contacted me to ask if I would like to join a small group of other locals that had helped, or contributed to the guidebook (little did I know the craziness that would follow....) for a ‘thank you’ supper one evening. 

Amongst the invited guests was someone I’d seen around over the years, on and off, but never actually met or spoken to. A walker, blonde, Swedish (I presumed). We both recall even exchanging a nod of recognition on a Telendos ferry once some time back. She was the last to arrive and sat in the only vacant seat next to me. And we chatted all evening :) Turns out she’s lovely, from Finland and plays chess! Thank you Rockfax!!

During late summer we met up in Hungary for my friends Dave and Svetlana’s wedding near Budapest. Pam and I have been together ever since, and some decisions have needed to be revisited.

Guidebooks.

Talking of Rockfax, their guide book started an outrageous summer! 

The response from the established guidebook team was to endorse the changing of route names to ‘outdate’ the new RF guide. 

Claude Idoux (and possibly others), the leader of the Kalymnos mountain rescue team, changed the names of routes on at least 4 sectors that we know of, some over 40 metres long. Some names were even just swapped with others at the same crag. One name that actually had bolts and anchors paid for by a group of Norwegian climbers has disappeared altogether. These actions were encouraged and approved of by Aris Theodoropoulos, the writer of all of the Kalymnos guides to date. 

Claude is French, and it appears all French climbers hate Rockfax with a passion for its poor behaviour in the past. For me Claude’s behaviour this summer was, I don’t know, incredible? Crazy? Offering to burn climbers Rockfax guides for them at the crag??? Weird, and a bit sad.

Aris just appears to disapprove of having any competition. If the rumours of plagiarism are true, then perhaps he has a valid point and should take that up with Rockfax directly rather than allowing climbers lives to be put at risk in this way. 

Aris released his 2019 guide in September (2018) to the usual acclaim, and from what I’ve seen, it is, once again, a very fine guide book. Why he couldn’t just publish and let his great work do the talking I’ll never know. 

For me though, I refuse to be blackmailed or forced into buying a guide after its author deliberately put the competition out of date in the worst of ways. 

No thanks. 

I’m not totally certain of the historical backdrop to all of this, who to believe?? All I know is that I, and most other climbers, just love a good guidebook! I had no idea of Rockfax’s history until now, and I have bought every Kalymnos guide since I started coming here in 2001. 

Whatever their reasons may be, the behaviour of two respected (in Aris’s case, highly respected), full grown adults, both guides, instructors and climbers is ridiculous, beyond stupid, and it carries with it some unlikely, but obvious dangers. It seems like they have managed to ‘get away with it’ this year with no incidents that I know of as a result of the renaming, but the potential remains. 

This was a strange time. After spending nearly 2 months in the UK climbing and with my family, it made me feel like just packing up and leaving the island again. I have no idea why I felt so angry about the guide book fiasco, maybe it was the icing on the cake? I know I love the island and it seemed a pity to see it being used as a pawn in a book war and treated with disrespect by people that claim to also love it..? Maybe it was indicative of the cavalier attitudes on the island at times, the lawlessness, the disregard for others safety, especially from Aris who’s whole career is and was safety based, a man I liked and respected greatly. Just look at his CV on the flap of the guidebook.  A lot to risk!

So, things have settled down now and there was the quick agreement and publishing of legal guidelines (initially worked out in 2016, and published now for obvious reasons, in a small, quiet forum post on ClimbKalymnos), and also the formation of a committee to oversee the bolting of new routes on the island, with a requirement to obtain permission from that 3 man committee before bolting any new routes, and to maintain standards and adherence to the bolting protocol. All completely good ideas in principle.

They have (as expected) been almost entirely ignored and new routes are appearing all over the island.

This is a real pity as the protocol in essence is an excellent idea and would ensure the best quality of bolts and anchors are placed on the crags. 

Its worth noting that there was no mention of the repair work and maintenance needed in the committees remit, yet this is far more important than drilling more new routes!

For the record, I applied by email, as requested. I never received a reply.

I visited the municipality member of the committee in the tourist office at the port in late September. I was told to wait until after the festival.

I emailed again in November, after the festival. I still have not received a reply.

Conclusions; 

1. The committee is a sham, a cover, a safety net put in place to cover the asses of those involved in renaming routes in the summer (Highly likely, blame for incidents can be put on those that published routes that were ‘not released to the public’ thereby absolving the locals of any responsibility).
2. Or, they simply can’t be bothered.
3. Or, I’m not to be given ‘permission’ to bolt. In which case, just say so!
4. They realise its not workable and opens them up to litigation if things do break or go wrong. 

Whatever. Perhaps a combination of all the above?

I know many that have just carried on bolting regardless. Maybe I will too at some point, but for now I will not bolt new, or repair old routes until I have permission from the committee. 

That’s where we are as of now. 

Climbing.

With work reduced to hobby status, I could focus on my climbing.

This has gone pretty well all things considered, and with a change of focus to a more project based style of climbing, I have been able to begin ticking off some of the harder routes on the island. I am definitely more excited by new routes and new crags to climb on, in preference to returning day in, day out to the same route, but with a shift of mind set, that style can sit along side the more usual ‘on-sight’ mentality I have after years of trad climbing in the UK. 

I have actually begun to enjoy the learning process, get up the route by stick-clip, work the moves and develop the required strength and skills to do the route in one go. Up to a point. That point seems to be around 8a+. I can’t seem to break into that hard 8a/+ grade yet. I’m trying to look at diet and training now, something that maybe I should have looked at years ago. It might have enabled me to climb harder in the past, but, who knows. I’m enjoying this process NOW, and for me that is exciting. If I can keep fit and injury free, maybe, just maybe things will slowly improve? Time will tell.

Here’s to 2019. 

All the best from Kalymnos. 

NB, all of the above is merely my humble opinion, for what that is worth.