Not really a chance to gloat about heading overseas for 5 months- hoping for some tips and practicalities from places to stay to routes to climb and even "dont miss" tourist things to do.... two of us travelling-we have heaps of guide books (about 10kg!) but trying to tell what is not so good eg in the Swiss Plaisir series, or the masses of multipitch limestone around Annecy for instance is tricky. Want to prune what books to take/ or digitisise. The end of the year is rapidly approaching and our research time is limited. I need some inspiration! Five months isnt really long enough to waste time ending up in an old quarry in Switzerland (like St triphon) which has happened to me before, when it turned out there was spectacular limestone not that far away.
Will have full trad rack, 2 ropes (a single 70m and a 60m 8.6mm) and fly into and out of London. Havent yet decided whether we should take an ice axe and crampons as doing stuff like walking up Jezbel Toukbal in Morroco and some alpine rock could be quite fun. We climb to grade 25 sports and trad (if its got good gear)
Interested in mixing up multipitch/adventurous routes with some sports climbing.
The 90 day limit in Schengen countries explains the lenght of time in Morocco and Turkey (but they also sound great). As an indication the most memorable route for a previous trip was Steger route on East Face of Rosengartenspitze and Rebuffat route on Aigulle d'Midi whereas all the little crags have faded from memory.
Plan at the moment:
FLy to Morocco 31 January for 5 weeks (Anti-Atlas and Todra Gorge)
Fly to Turkey (climbing Imzir, Olympos, Geyikbari, Ala Daglar NP) 4 weeks
Ferry to Kalymnos 2 weeks
Ferry to Crete 1 week
Get to Rome somehow, lease car
Northern Italy 2 weeks
Car ferry to Corsica 1 week
Ferry to France, than France /Switzerland 4 weeks
UK 2 weeks- fly home early July