Kalymnos at its best but there are less climbers

In 2016, some 150 routes have been opend and 300 new routes have been bolted on Kalymnos including Arginonta Valley, which has become possibly the most popular sector on the island. The approach is five minutes, it is very well protected, both the longer vertical easier routes and the shorter steeper routes around 7a are of high quality and it is in the shade. Even so, there have been around 20% less climbers this year and in fact, the topo author Aris, estimated that October started with the least climbers since 2005. The main reason for this is said to be climbers not being comfortable been the refugee situation from last year and the fact that Ryan Air stopped some 50% of their flights. Another possible reason might be the fact that bouldering, especially indoors, has exploded creating a different climber profil: less interested to climb long steep routes on jugs. Instead of getting super pumped needing long recovery and actually feeling the grades for this type of routes to be hard, they might have chosen to travel to Fontainebleu this autumn. As of 2017, 8a will try to present all possible flight connections now when Ryan Air will stop flying to Kos and there will be less flights directly to Kalymnos. Many other ideas, like bolting more short routes, adding bolts on some ”oldschool” routes, creating circuits, climbing festivals etc have been put forward and 8a will follow up on it.