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postcard from crimea 12-Apr-2009 At 5:19:54 AM freesolo

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So after the night train from Hell, whereby the babushka in the bunk across from me, either an involuntary discharge from the TB sanitorium or a retired worker from chernobyl, tried to hack her lungs up from midnight to 6am, I stumbled exhaustedly across the tracks to the bus station and paid $2 for crushing room only. I saw very little of the famous Crimean landscape that first hour and missed the landmark crag (we flew by at about 90kph), and I got off at the bus stop below the Foros crag. Nice rock but no climbers about. Found and deciphered my first Crimean solar shower, which will come in handy at Araps.

Spent an hour resting on the bus bench before ditching my pack in the bushes and walking DOWN to town. Had a kielbasa and baguette lunch on the shores of the Black Sea, Baby!!!
After an hour of trying to hitch back up to the motorway, only 2km, but I'd been up for 24 hours, two military officers gave me a lift and would have taken me to the next crag, Simiez, but I don't have enough Russian to tell them my rucksack is in the bushes. But I got a lift from a lorry driver a few minutes later. Got off at the Simiez exit and started down again. Was heading for the crags at the water's edge and happened to pass the climbing shop, which was closed, but called the number on the door and got a, gasp, Russian speaker. What are the odds!

So, tired and despondent, was sitting on the steps and noticed a woman walking by in hiking boots so asked if she spoke English and did she. As the fat, green ogre said, "getting her to shut up is the trick". Apparently, Simiez is the centre of hippie culture in Crimea, so got an earful of organic, japanese gardening as she walked me uphill (shit) to her friend's pensione. A brilliant couple who are very much into Indian Astrology and such. There really is a limit to how long you can listen to the "OM" chant.

The next morning I walked back to the climbing shop and "chatted" with the owners. Nice shop but all the gear is wicked expense for me much less the local climbers. I rocked up to the local crag and found two Ukranian climbers, and top-roped a few bolted routes. Nice rock right by the sea and warm, blessed sunshine, after a month freezing my arse off in Kiev. (although the bouldering gym in Kiev was very well heated even if it was quite crowded and small).
The two climbers, S and V, invited me to go do a multipitch route up on the cliffs the next day. I accepted even tho we couldn't communicate at all, and all night my thoughts were on how the hell we were going to climb togther, especially if something went wrong. The climber shop owner rented me a helmet and the next avro, we got a lift from some other climbers. The road to the trailhead was actually the road thru the huge, local limestone quarry and the driver wouldn't take his car up it, so our 30 minute approach was about 90 in full kit-yea!!

The base camp was luxurious with a table, benches, jar of honey, billy for tea, and fireplace. That evening, I found out we would be bashing pitons in, and they wanted me to climb third and pull pitons, which I had never done before. I could see myself impaling the hammer in my forehead, thus ending my adventure in Crimea. I finally convinced them I should climb second. They showed my their homemade ice axes. If I am ever in a fight to the death and I don't have a shotgun, my second choice is one of these axes. Jaesus! Although removing it from someone's chest cavity would be a bit problematic.

I found out also, they were near professional alpinists and had put up a new 8000m ice route in the Himalyas, so felt better that I wouldn't be tomorrow's fatality.
After a freezing cold night (they probably thought I was a poufter with my blow up air mattress while they slept on the ground), we went up to the base. The first pitch was an absolute nightmare and if the rest of the route (350m) was like that, no bloody way was I getting to the top. Imagine a 40cm water pipe, sliced lengthwise - sort of an offwidth with curved sides in vertical limestone with no actual crack in the back. V led off with me belaying and I leaned the Ukrainian version of "take, dammit" very, very quickly. This is how Berlitz should teach languages. He was shaking like an epileptic, bashing in hooks and pins in minimal slots. They only had 5 cams and a set of nuts between them and my double rack is back home.

He got to belay after some rope problems (he was dragging both ropes and started curving right when I pointed out to S that I wouldn't be able to do anything with the second rope on my way up; a short argument later V was climbing on both ropes; for the rest of the day I trailed rope two and re-clipped pitons on the way by whilst cleaning the cams and nuts-to speed things up and keep V from dragging two ropes up all day; there was a much longer and louder argument in the middle of pitch 5 but I don't think it had anything to do with me; but I'll never know.)

I strapped on the pack, since I had sherpa duty, and my hiking boots and set off on the first pitch. Bloody hell! Far and away the hardest 6a I have ever climbed. I couldn't wedge myself in because of the pack and boots and the holds were sparse and sharp. I left some measure of blood in that water pipe. Then the route goes across a blank slab with a thin seam for pitons and a few good holds. I pulled on all the gear until the last 12 meters and when I got to the belay, found V belaying me off of one old quick draw to one bolt with a munter hitch, the same bolt he was anchored to! Shite! I threaded a sling thru and old piton and tried to think light. As the day progressed, I tried to show them the old cordelette trick with three pieces for the anchor, but don't think I impressed them. Maybe cause I barely made it up the first pitch.

I tried to give him the gri-gri to bring up S and back up the anchor, but no joy there. Eventually, by the end, I was doing all the belaying and re-sorting the anchor when I got there. But V never wanted a belay device, even tho they had a gri-gri and a reverso. Ukrainian hardmen!! They eat cold pork fat everyday-the national Ukrainian dish.
Luckily, the next 6 pitches were quite enjoyable and exposed, with enough cracks, so the piton bashing was minimal, although there was some groveling thru scree with no gear on the traverse pitch above a nice drop off, and the weather co-operated; a little cold in the shade but do-able. The crux pitch was a breeze except for bashing thru the bloody fir tree right after the crux move, where I fell. Very scary since I knew the anchor holding me was probably one piton and a quick draw, which it was.

The last pitch was beautiful with 5m of actual hand jamming-yea!! The walk down was brutal scree for about 45 minutes with some really solid iron staples in the vertica bit. I was absolutely knackered when we got back to camp. I really did intend to go down to the road 1 k away and fill up the water jugs, really!

After another night of soup, Russian lessons, chatting with some climbers from St Petersburg, who came down on a 33 hour train (bloody hell-Aussies think they have it bad; no more whingeing about driving from Sydney to Araps!) the next morning, I left S and V my camping gas and extra food to make up for my sloth, and walked all 5k down to the motorway (it was saturday and the quarry was closed and the postal truck wouldn't give me a lift.).

All in all, a brilliant 5 day climbing holiday. Met great people, learned some Russian, and climbed to exhaustion. The plan is to come back next month and go to another area in Crimea. Hopefully, it will be warm enough to get in the sea after climbing. Cheers.