Kalymnos is legendary and before I travelled there, I wanted to learn about the past two decades of development. Climbing started in Kalymnos in 1996, when Italian climber Andrea di Bari visited the area for his summer holidays. He explored the potential and returned the following year with some friends.
They established 43 sport routes at the crags called Arhi, Odyssey and Poets. Bari returned later that year with Andrea Gallo, a photographer for Alp magazine. After articles began popping up in the spring of 1999, countless climbers visited the area with power drills and bolts.
It wasn’t long after that when the local municipality worked with Aris Theodoropoulos to promote the local climbing. They scrutinized the protection of the existing routes and added new ones. They started a website that had translations in English, Spanish, German, French and more.
It was in the fall of 2000 when an international climbing event was organized by Acharnes Greek Alpine Club to take place at Kalymnos. French climber Catherine Destivelle and 180 climbers from 13 countries came together to help transform the walls into a climber’s paradise. The local council then published a guidebook and gave it away to climber.
Nowadays, Kalymnos is one of the world’s best sport climbing areas. With nearly 3,000 routes in 2016, most accessible after a short approach, it’s easy to see why so many travel to the Greek island. The limestone has more features than Canadian limestone because there is no freeze/thaw cycle that breaks rock.
Some of the routes have big tufas and climb through caves. Others climb vertical faces with thin holds and pockets. There are plenty of moderates on lower angle walls and routes up to 5.14d on steeper one. Most of the routes have steel biners fixed at the anchor you can lower off.
The bolting is never too spacey and the first three bolts are always close to prevent decking. I noticed that most of the climbers were there as couples and there weren’t as many young people as Thailand. It’s cheap and easy living in Kalymnos with great food and friendly locals. The deep water soloing and big stone arches add to the variety of climbing.
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