As we bade farewell to Leonidio after a marvellous five-weeks in residence in 2019…

Goodbye Leonidio, Hello Kyparissi – Kastraki

… we certainly didn’t expect it to be another five years before a return visit. Covid and other factors intervened, and in the meantime we’d started to pick up unsettling news that our newly-discovered climbing Eden had started to change. Rumours of over-crowding, car theft and a plague of inconsiderate van-lifers had us wondering whether we’d missed out on a large chunk of the “golden age”.

I’m happy to report that such fears seem unfounded (at least from the perspective of an end-of-January trip – I guess that’s somewhat before the main season). There are plenty of climbers about, but fewer than in Feb 2019, when admittedly we’d skewed the baseline by shipping in about 30 Rucksack Club members! These have included a few Greeks, which is brilliant to see, but largely an international crew, predominantly from Germanic nations but we’ve met Yanks, Kiwis, French and Spanish and even Lithuanians – curiously not a single Brit yet.

The town seems to be benefitting from the trickle of cash that has accompanied the influx of climbers (though of course it’s hard to judge these things as an incomer). As well as the sprinkling of new bars and restaurants (and a bunch of “boutique” gear shops!) the more mainstream amenities seem to be spruced up a bit too. Our favourite campsite, Camping Semeli, is certainly thriving (we even had to wait a couple of days to bag our favourite sea-side spot).

Even if the number of climbers has increased, so have the number of climbs. The Greece “Best of” guide we used on our first visit in 2017 boasted over 1,000 routes wheres the “updated in 2023” Pangika guide has around 2,700! We’ll hopefully be visiting plenty of new crags during our stay, so I aim to focus blog posts on these rather than re-hashing info already recorded. You can browse that here if you’ve stumbled across the blog for the first time. https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/category/greece/leonidio/ On the subject of guides (and grades) there are two “competing” definitive guidebooks (the above mentioned Pangika guide and one from Aris at ClimbGreece). They’re both pretty decent but can’t seem to agree on grades, with Aris being generally, but not always, slightly more generous. Judge me if you will, but I’ll report the bigger ticks – the only person I’m comparing myself with is 2019 me, and he’d got five years on his side and a bit more fitness under his belt – I’m not cutting the bugger any more slack!

Anyway, onto the climbing… Following a day of rain, our first day was in single digits Centigrade, so despite intentions to “boldly go where we’d never gone before” we settled for familiarity and picked the toasty Mad Wall / Panagia area. Some new ground Tsibouki, 5c, and Joni, 5c for Helen…

… and a grey-point of Solo Right, 7a, for me (at the far right of the huge tufa wall – there’s a team just about visible in the centre).

Warming up the next day…

… but still not toasty, so we made a re-visit to Love Ledge (Note – there’s now a much more convenient and shorter approach path from directly beneath the crag).

Helen led the very traddy corner of Mikkey, 5c

I struggled to repeat two very soft “7bs” from 2019: Words of Wisdom and Dirty Lies (now 6c+s) but did manage Fovera Theli, 7a. However the highlight of the day was some stand-in baby holding while a Swiss couple were juggling sack-packing and belay duty. Very cute…

There’s a new set of routes on the south facing left wall of Theos Pillar, with fun, featured initial grey pitches topped off with prickly orange extensions for 40m 6c/7a rope-stretching. Approach / Extension, brilliant at 6a/6c; and Westbam and Dr Motte, both 7a – the latter features a commodious and highly improbable hands-off rest:

Too new for even the 2023 guidebook…

I should probably have called it a day at that point, but couldn’t stop Ace of Spades blaring away inside my head, so popped round into the shade for another lap on this brilliant route. “You win some, you loose some, it’s all the same to me” as Lemmy would have said.

Looking back at the end of Day 3 at the huge expanse of the Cave of Panagia sector – so much quality rock!

Hopefully with a spell of settled weather we’ll break new ground next….