The Onsight Chronicles

Earlier this year Monique and I headed overseas on a ten week trip with three and a half month old baby Coco in tow. It was one of the best climbing and photography trips I’d done in a long time!

The trip started with nine days in Hong Kong (see some photos here) then we headed to the idyllic Greece island of Kalymnos. We originally planned to stay for three weeks but found it so perfect, we ended up staying on Kalymnos for six!

Here is just a taste of my photos. There are a LOT MORE which I’m not showing here just yet.

Monique and Coco at Pothia, the main town at Kalymnos.

At the beginning we stayed at Ambiance Studio’s and the view was hard to take! That’s Telendos Island just a few minutes boat ride away. It’s hard to believe Telendos and Kalymnos Island’s were joinded until an earthquake in 554 A.D.

The Grand Grotta, one of the best crags here. A place where we spent a fair bit of time!

Maja Vidmar on Fun de Chichunne (8a) in the Grande Grotta. Maja is currently one of the best competition climbers in the world and she has also managed to transfer those skills over to rock climbing very effectively. Fun de Chichunne was a warm-down route for her. She’d done it years ago. It looked to me as though she could have thrown laps up and down it all afternoon.

Simon Montmory is from France but now lives at Kalymnos. He’s super energetic, really helpful and is a fully qualified guide; so if you’re looking for a guide at Kalymnos then Simon’s your man. Here he is attempting his project at sector Kalydna, one of many routes he has bolted at Kalymnos.

Monique on Kalinycta mer (7b+), Jurassic Park

Sometimes we’d find baby sitters for Coco but other times take her to the crag and rock her to sleep in her “bouncinette”. Somehow I suspect travelling with a young baby is easier than when they get a bit more mobile…

Coco, the little socialite, at a dinner with the Major of Kalymnos.

Jasmin Caton is a rock, alpine and skiing guide from Squamish, Canada. Here she’s slaying Spartacus (7b+) at sector Spartacus.

Crusher from the US, Kyle Vassilopoulos, busting out Mammifere Vibes (8b), sector Arhi.

Kyle Vassilopoulos on Rendez with Paton (8b), Jurassic Park.

A change of digs. Hotel Philoxinia with the Grand Grotta just 10 minutes walk up the hill behind.

Young Czech star Adam Ondra turned up for the climbing festival and in five days went on an unprecedented sending spree. I’ll blog more about that later but in this photo Adam is onsighting Gora guta gutarak (8c+) — only the second time a route this difficult has ever been “onsighted”. I was excited for Adam but also happy because I was confident I had photographed it well. But, then, um, later, Adam said that he thought the route was too bouldery to be 8c+ and suggested it was “only” 8c (or Australian 33). I think the jury’s still out on that one as it had been graded 8c+ by two other top climbers — who aren’t known for over-grading… But whatever, it was damn impressive!

There might just be something in the Ondra blood… Christine Ondra (Adam’s sister) on The Path to Deliverence (8a) which she later climbed.

Monique hiking out to Sikati Cave

It’s about a 40 minute hike out to Sikati Cave but it’s worth it. It has some of the most extraordinary climbing on the island. As you approach it looks like just a massive hole in the ground, as if it’d been created by a giant meteor impact.

Inside the Sikati Cave the steep overhanging limestone is a bit “out of this world”. It’s hard to see at this resolution but in the top right of the photo Monique is busily onsighting Laurent… y’ a quelue’ un (7c+).

Jasmin Caton leading Armata Sikati (7b), Sikati Cave.

Climbing photographer Jim Thornburg was here for bit too. Jim is one of the best climbing photographers in the world. I think he might have been doing it even longer than I have! It was good to catch up with Jim, I hadn’t seen him since 2000 when he kindly let us scrounge a doss for a few nights on our first trip to the US. Here Jim is “techniqueing” his way up DNA (7a+) at Grand Grotta. With experience comes all the tricks, eh!?

Olivier Michellod on a very amazing bit of rock I’ll tell you about later… sorry!

Claude Remy on Pillar of the Sea (6a+), Kasteli. Claude and his partners have been responsible for equipping HUNDEREDS of new routes on Kalymnos Island. He is in no small way responsible for helping make Kalymnos the great climbing destination that it is. Many of the routes he equips are far easier than he’s personally interested in climbing. Claude told me he gets satisfaction from seeing other people enjoying his routes. It is certainly a service to the community. One word: respect!

And to finish with a little sunset, this time with a climber on what is possibly one of THE most photographed climbs in the world! I’m serious, I really think it is. It seems like every man and his dog with a camera who visit Kalymnos photographs this route. I was going to resist. I really was. But when you find yourself up there with a camera one evening… well, it’s hard to look a gift horse in the mouth. The climber is Benedikt Walser and the route is Aegialis (7c) in the Grande Grotta.

So that finishes this little trip report of sorts. What a great trip it was. Monique cranked, Coco made friends with everyone she met, and I had fun and it was good for my work (some of the work was personal, some was for several different clients). Over the six weeks I even enjoyed a few rest days and even got to sit on the beach for at least half an hour – twice!

Like I said at the start, these are just some of my shots for the trip. Keep an eye out for more.