Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Turkey-Alabalik (Day 113)

We rolled out of bed more excited about the climbing possibilities.

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We enjoyed a breakfast of bread, cookie biscuits, and nutella we’d gotten at the market.

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This morning we walked down to the mess hall and asked around some people where we should go and got recommended Alabalik (Salmon).  They said because it would be in the shade and not so hot.  Hot?  The temps were like in the 70’s serious that is too hot?

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We got to the crag after a little navigation challenges and it was pretty busy which motivated us to “warm up” on 6b so I jumped on Alabalik 5.10d.  I hung pumped out on the crux.  Guess I’m still not leading 6b totally solid but Anja pulled through it no problem.

We then just started working our way left and jumped on No Gearrr 5.10b which went ok for both of us but the camera battery had died.  Drag.

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A lady we had meet the day before said we should try Brazilia Carnaval 5.11a/b and that no moves were harder than the 6b we already did so I gave it a shot.  I made about 6 bolts of great climbing and then had to start hanging at every bolt but flailed my way up to the last bolt and got it clipped.  Now just the anchors to go but they were up and over a slab.  I pulled the moves to reach onto of the slab but now 4 ft above the last bolt I was going to take a poor fall if I slimed off the slab so I stepped back down and dropped onto the bolt to hang.  NO WAY I’m topping out that way.  I had spotted a bolt anchor for a different climb just a few feet left and up so I climbed and clipped them then pulled up to the anchor for my climb by bigger holds.  I was still proud to manage to clip the anchors on the first 7a I’d ever tried to lead.

Anja gave it a shot after me and made the last bolt clean and pulled up to the slab and so no way and did same as I did.  I squeaked out one last picture of Anja high on the climb.

After that we headed out to checkout the rest of the area and the only climb less than 6b which we found interesting was Baby Bat 5.10b so we jumped on that quick. 

After Baby Bat I packed up and walked over to check out a little cave quick and when I came back Anja was gone.  I ran around for about 30 minutes looking for her at the crag and the bathrooms and back to the base of Baby Bat.  Couldn’t find her, it was about 1.5 hours until sunset so I headed back to the bungalow hoping she had ditched me.  I got back to the bungalow and she had ditched me.  Of course she thought I had ditched her and I had headed back and was surprised to find I was not at the bungalow when she got back.  I lectured her about outdoor ethics a little.

OUTDOOR RULE: When outdoors if you lose your partner or the group always return to the last spot you saw each other.  This sort of error is common but can result in serious situations like if one person is injured or more simply if one person believes they are in the back of the group and is actually in the front trying to catch up.  Easy way to find yourself without a tent for the night.

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Back at camp.

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We made arrangements to head down to Olympos and climb in hopes that the wifi would be better down there.  We had to talk to Tobais about this and he gave us a line about their reservation policy was only a 20% refund for cancellation.  I started prepping for a fight over our early departure due to services not rendered due to the lack of wifi at times.  We’ll see how that go.  He seems reasonable but not very cool about providing poor service.

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