Welcome to the fifth day of climbing for this group here in sunny Kalymnos.
Sam on the walk-in to Odyssey, while Ruth cranks in the background.
Funny stuff with Ruth today on the slippery and tricky Femio 6a+ (pictured above). It's stiff - no gimme for the 6a+/19 grade. Because of its position it gets tons of traffic and is therefore super polished. Ruth gave it one burn and had plenty of rests and claimed "There's no way I'm leading this, it's just too slippery!" After sorting things out on toprope a couple of times, she was suddenly tying in for the lead. What the? Ruth is highly vocal when climbing and if she's thinking it up there, she's saying it. So we get a great insight into what's going on in her head as she's climbing, and yet me tell you, there was a lot of self-doubt and uncertainty during this lead! We've all been there. To Dave's great credit, he played his role of belayer (i.e. climber supporter) perfectly and was able to help Ruth make her way through the doubts and push through to the anchors and her hardest lead climb. Congrats Ruth! From now on I suggest less judging what you can't do, and being more curious as to what you can do. There's so much ability there waiting to be unleashed...
This little orange domino spider (not the technical name) was way cool.
Dave decided on the tough Itaca 6c (perhaps more like 7a?) as something to get a workout on. He'd been on it on the 2008 trip and in this shot (above), tries like hell to remember the sequence. On his second burn, he went all the way through, skipped the last bolt, only to fall on the final hard move. A very near thing, and 100% energy output. Just what we want - awesome!
With that kind of effort, you get special personal shade privileges. All part of the Upskill Service ®.
Andy's day proj was Dionysos 7a. I put the gear on, ticked up some holds for him and then gave the beta rundown. He fell on the last move on the flash. Effort! On the second shot, same deal - that powerful final move! He woke up the next day sore across the back and shoulders and is now booked in for a massage.
Another day, another shot of Telendos. I never get sick of it.
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