The Basic Rock Climbing Kit

We woke up to snow on monday, it got cold sleeping out!

Yesterday I managed to do something I've been dreaming of trying since 2007 when I first saw it. I climbed the mega line of the Grande Grotta, Fun de chichuune 8a. The route is 40m long and it's essentially a roof for most of its length. As you can see in the photos below, you climb through blobs and stalactites, interspersed with scary blank sections. 

There were tons of kneebars and other creative rests along the way. I spent most of the time hanging upside down by my knees. The weight of the quickdraws felt like it might pull my harness off. There are 28 clips.

It was a hot day so I was sweating heaps and the tufas were often damp or outright dripping with water. I managed to remove my shirt on one of the rests at halfway and use it as a towel. Later, towards the end, I had to thoroughly chalk up my forehead. That's a first.

Most of these pics are in the first third when it's not so steep (!)






And the best part, it was onsight. The first try. Meaning I thankfully didn't have to try the whole enormous beast for a second time, which would be crushing. You might cry.

Route pics © C Vaillancourt 2010

Mike B was trying out the new CAMP Stratos harness. I heard no complaints on the many hanging belays that we were subjected to on this day.

Mike B and I arrived to find the North rim's campground full. We managed to meet some folks that we knew and squeezed on in.

Slide show for the folks at the Lakewood Link! Great job competing this year!

A quick shout out to our USA readers. I'm going to be in your part of the world for July-August 2010. Flying into Denver late Jun. No rack, so forget trad unless I can borrow yours. Vague plans include Maple Canyon and Rifle. But I'm psyched for any beta and suggestions for good summer areas. Leave a comment, email me, Facebook, whatever. Look forward to seeing you and your sights...

Jane and I in the back of some ones pickup after we got a flat tire while mountain biking in Fruita, Colorado. Of course there was a storm coming, we had no flat repair kit and we were as far as we could have possibly been from the truck! Oh well folks are nice and we got a ride back to town. : )

Keith and Co snapping photos and video of Steph Davis.

Quarry wall at North Table, Some good routes but mostly a bit junky. Nice cause it's not too busy these days.

Been super busy and running around for a while. Stay tuned for some big news!
Plus I have a staff infection in my right knee. How it came is a question for me too. The doc said that they since we always are car ring around bacteria in our bodies, that sometimes it just finds a nice place to breed and so it does. Any way my knee has been the size of a baseball and painful to use for a few. At least my meds are working and the swelling has just gone down a bit.

I will post some photos of climbing at the Quarry Wall at Table Mountain in Golden soon. What a nice crag. Not too busy, the routes are dirty, somewhat poorly cleaned but are fun. There is a couple of great clean cracks and the rest of the routes are fluff to give you something to do if a party is on the good climbs. Nice views and if you want to take some of the precut quarried stone you could carry it back to your home and make a nice fireplace or stone wall too!

Finally, I will be in Eugene, Oregon this friday night giving a slide show. Anyone around come down for a good time! Cuba Norway and Utah first free ascents are the name of the game.

Get out and rock climb!!
piz : )

I am really glad that you have visited my blog.Thanks and I hope to see and hear from you soon.
Rob Pizem
And last but not least, don't forget to check out my favorite sites: http://www.scarpa.nethttp: //www.arcteryx.comhttp: //camp-usa.com http://sterlingrope.com http://ColoradoMountainJournal.com http://www.wunderground.com http://climbing.com http://rockandice.comhttp://deadpointmag.com http://urbanclimbermag.com http://andrewburr.com http://ladzinski.com

Okay, well now I know. Fine.

So there's this goat, right? She hangs out at the base of Afternoon sector. We think she's pregnant. She'll sit, or stand, unmoving, at the base of one of the routes. Usually the goats are skittish. Not this girl. She stands her ground. You want to stand there to belay? Tough.

Dave Bateman and the other Aussies Brad and Adam met her on their first day. They turned their backs briefly, only to turn around and discover her casually flipping through pages in their guidebook. It looked as though she was checking out what to climb next.

So I was calmly eating my mandarin and thought "What the hey, let's see if she'll eat a piece out of my hand". Well she did. But then didn't want to call it quits at one piece. She was all up in my business after the rest of it. Being a gentleman, I obliged. Okay I was scared. Goats look evil. It's that slanty pupil. She then was rumaging through our food bag and the only way to disuade her was to clip it to the first bolt of one of the 6c's.

So unless you're made of mandarins, FFS, don't feed the goats! 

In less goat-related news, I did my hardest onsight today, Aegialis 7c/27 in the Grande Grotta. It's about 30m long and 40 degrees overhanging climbing a series of stalactites, blobs, and continuous tufa curtains. I wasn't very warmed up, having only done a 6b, so I was thankful to find a stack of kneebars (like 15 or something) and just managed to squeak my way through. I spent about 25 minutes on it, and I think it's harder than the other 7c's I've onsighted.



A nice French guy Oliver decided to try his luck after me, and I loaned my kneebar pads for him to try. An hour or so later he walked around the corner to return them looking exhausted, and I asked him how the pads went. He said "I couldn't find one kneebar!". Oh how we laughed! I couldn't believe it! He said I should go to one of his favourite crags Gorges du Tarn in France where there are no kneebars. I said that would be scary because I would have to get fit! :)

I'm now blogging from my new office, as we moved house yesterday. Picture below. The umbrella is today's new enhancement. I must say, I think this is the best office environment I've worked in to date. 

Not to be confused with the video from the first group a couple of weeks ago, this is all new material, all new actors, and is based on a true story.

More Cheese Please! Upskill Climbing Camp #2 - Kalymnos 2010 from Upskill Climbing on Vimeo.

Join our second group of the year on their tour of duty in Kalymnos, Greece. To sign up for the next one, or to peep more Upskillery, visit www.upskillclimbing.com

Today, our second group of climbers flew out of Kalymnos. As we wave goodbye through the glass window at the Kalymnos airport, Sam and I are saying goodbye to our last links to Australia for the next ... who knows? But let's step back a few days.

After the big day at Ghost Kitchen, the group's seventh climbing day was scheduled for Spartacus (aka Spar-ta-klus). This big orange bowl is one of my favourite sectors on the island because of its looong routes. I quickly ran up Tales of Greek Heroes 6b+ to set a toprope on this 40m pitch. You can use a 70m rope just by the skin of your teeth.

Ronsley and Lena both toproped on this and Andy punched out a lead. Sam has a project up here dating back to 2007. The route is called Harakiri. Its modest grade of 6b belies its steep, pumpy climbing and sequency crux. It's basically Sam's anti-style. Andy was kind enough to put the draws on "Bloody hell I'm pumped!" and Sam decided to have a warm up burn. Long story short, the warm up burn turned into the send. Happy days!

It seemed the sendage gates were open so I jumped on Neska Polita 7c+ and dispatched it on my second try after misreading the tricky crux traverse. We needed a route that would take Andy out of his comfort zone and the steep, long and intimidating Kerveros 7a fit the bill. Andy fought the good fight but it wasn't to be. Another one to come back for!



After a well needed rest day, Seabreeze and Katherina were the sectors in mind for what proved to be a warm but windy day. Seabreeze consists of a sweeping expanse of the typical Kalymnian grey-blue slabs. The routes here can be quite long, up to 35 metres, which is nice. Some rock features that differentiate Seabreeze are the chickenheads (nice) and some very sharp gouttes (V-shaped pockets). Ruth got stuck in and led a few routes, as did Ronsley, who came down from one and immediately led the one next door.



We were also really keen to get Lena super confident with belaying lead climbers on the Sum, so I was the crash test dummy and Sam was the belay coach. I proceeded to climb a 5b, taking falls every few metres. There's quite a bit to learn in terms of giving a soft catch whilst considering any obstacles, how to help the climber regain their highpoint without expending much energy etc. She was quite intuitive with this learning and now seems rock solid on the catch.



After punching through a few routes from 5b to 6b, we headed around the corner to Katherina sector. This red limestone wall sits overlooking Arginonda and looks a bit chossy from the road, but it actually hides a few gems, one of which is the aptly named And Now For Something Completely Different 5c which Lena is climbing in the photo below. It's a big trench thing and contains some wacky 3D climbing.



Ruth and Andy climbed the saucy Pornokini 6a which is famous as the route an 84 year old guy onsighted. Ronsley led Tufa Slab 5a while Lena escaped the sun...



Dave got inspired by a newish route called Albi Bak 7a+. It's always a worry when a route in Kalymnos has zero chalk. But up he went anyway. It climbs a prickly, flowstone covered vertical wall to a corner, runout climbing to a roof, then the crux turning the roof on reachy crimps to a short, steep slab finale. Dave gave it a couple of burns and despite drawing blood and taking some big falls, couldn't quite put it in the bag. He knows the value of power endurance training now to increase that "six move pump clock".



Keen to share the blood and sweat, Dave talked Andy into getting on board, and the reachy route was right up Lightfoot's alley. He came off the roof on his flash attempt, methodically worked the sequence, and then on the second burn after going up and down on the roof for a couple of gut-wrenching minutes, inexplicably came off again (aka doing "an Andy"). Gahhhh! It was a heartbreaker. I had to hug the guy.



The final clibing day was dictated by the boys. Ronsley said "If we go to Odyssey, I'm going to sit and project Atena all day". Andy had unfinished business after "Andying" off the top of Dionysos 7a and Dave had his Itaca 6c (more like 7a) project from not only this trip, but the previous camp in 2008. So, it was decided.

First up, Ronsley. I dunno if it was the fact that it was the last day, but something lit a fire under him and he came outta nowhere on Atena. One solid burn, then another - on lead - on a route that was grades above anything he'd climbed. He ended up one hanging it, and wrung the last of the usefulness out of a shoulder that had been dodgy all trip.



Andy on Dionysos. What to say? On his first shot the other day he climbed almost level to the anchors, so we knew today would be better, and it was. He put in several shots and fell at the anchors each time. On his best burn, he climbed PAST the anchors and still couldn't clip! I thought he was going to top out Odyssey and walk off the back. Well, that's about as close as you can come to sending, and yet not. 100% Andy!



Caught from Andy? Who knows? But falling from the top was a theme of the day and Dave loves carrying on a theme. He did with his burns on Itaca. It's a bloody burly route that spits climbers off the top time and again. On one burn he touched the victory hold but didn't latch it. Soooo close.



Everyone went down the hill exhausted, knowing they'd done all they could physically do on this trip. That makes me happy - seeing people give their all. The tick is actually not very important, but the process of learning, refining and giving it everything - this is what makes climbing so rewarding for me, and I love sharing this.



So this concludes yet another absolutely terrific camp here on Kalymnos. Even though the group came together with extremely varied experience and backgrounds in climbing, they were able to throw all of this in the melting pot and come out the other side with stacks of new learnings and motivations to train and progress their climbing when they return home.

And Kalymnos herself, well, she's gained yet more devotees, with talk of moving here, building houses, or at least being back on the next Upskill Camp.

Thanks for reading. This is the last post chronicling the progress of our Kalymnos Climbing Camps for 2010.

Now resuming your regular Upskill programming in 3...2...1...