Pirates of the Mediterranean 6b+ (6b obl.), 133 m, 4 pitches, traditional protection, NNW facing.
Details:
1st pitch: 6a+ ,35 m
Start at the southern part of the slab/ramp leading to an arête, past a small tree and onto a steep block passage. Climb through the next tree to a tricky passage to gain the ledge.
2nd pitch: 6b+, 30m
Downclimb the sloping ramp to gain the obvious feature with a crack on the left-hand side of the face. Follow the feature to a tricky exit up left. Follow the arête up to a stance before the angle changes.
3rd pitch: 5c+ 28 m
Climb the arête on its northern side all the way up to a steep passage. Gain the ledge for the belay.
4th pitch: Grade:6a+ , 40m.
Follow the corner up to the ledge, traverse the ledge to the left to a green gully to get to the tree on the face. From the tree make the committing exit to the ramp above and the finish of the route.
Descent:
From the end of the climb, scramble up the ramp until you reach the Buffavento castle (~10-15 min), climb into the castle and down the other side on the main path (southwards, ~15-20 min). From the Buffavento car park walk down the main road until you meet the fork. Turn right and continue until you are back at the initial car park. (Alternatively, you can take the well-marked hiking path from the main car park. This will save you some of the elevation at the end and takes you to the same location.)
Gear:
- 2x 50m half ropes
- 1 full set of cams (blue to blue)
- 1 set of nuts
- 12 quickdraws
Approach:
- Take the road to Buffavento castle, after about 6km you will come to a fork (under the castle).
- Turn left at the fork and continue for another kilometre until you find a nature information sign to your left. Park here.
- Follow the steep minor dirt road that takes you up to the ridge line, ~0.6km.
- When the dirt road turns into a path, follow the path for a few minutes until it splits.
- Take the uphill path (northwards) to the viewpoint.
- From the viewpoint follow the right-hand side gully downhill and traverse the hill until you meet easier terrain to head down
- With the wall in sight, keep moving NE through the forest until a short scrambly section takes you to the east-west ridge of the Buffavento summit.
- Navigate around the ridge traversing NE until you reach the start of the route.
Our story:
In preparation for our upcoming Anafi climbing excursion at the end of May Andreas and I decided to get as much adventure climbing in as possible. We had spotted a promising-looking wall on the north face below the castle while climbing at Buffawall earlier in the year (one of the best crags on this side of the island, check it out if you haven’t been there yet! https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/buffa_wall-27482/).
So on the 10th of May, we woke up early in Kyperounta and made our way down towards Buffavento castle in the Pentadaktylos mountains. We packed half ropes, an extra rope for hauling, just in case, our trad rack and the drill plus batteries.
Up to this day, we never had the chance to get close to the wall as it is not accessible from below, so some improvisation was needed to approach it. We drove up to the castle, turned left at the last fork before the visitor parking and left our car not far from there (see details in ‘Approach’). Even though it was only May, temperatures were already quite high, so we started the walk up the hill already getting quite sweaty. Luckily, as soon as we reached the ridge line we were hit by a nice breeze and from there on the approach continued through thick forest, giving us plenty of shade. A small side note: The forest on the north side of the Pentadaktylos is a truly magical place, with a mix of pine, strawberry trees, golden oaks and the occasional olive tree and the bright blue colours of the sea as a background. So even though the approach takes a while, it’s an enjoyable hike.
With the objective in sight, we traversed the slop and after about an hour we reached the base of the wall. From below we identified quite a few possible lines, this time we decided to go for the northern ridge which look promising both climbing and also gear-wise.
The first pitch turned out quite pleasant, not much cleaning and gardening was needed and there was protection where necessary with a tricky section to reach the first, quite comfortable belay by a tree.
From the second pitch on things became a bit more interesting. From the belay stance you have to traverse to the left and downclimb a few metres before getting into a vertical crack system. Here, plenty of gardening was necessary and Andreas had the classic first-ascend-face on: covered in soil, roots and dust. The wall got increasingly steeper and the holds a bit more sparse, the first section is protectable with small cams and nuts, however, the higher bit becomes pretty blank and is followed by a committing move to get over the steep bulge and exit to the left. Not knowing what to expect after the committing move, we decided to place a bolt here. I sent the drill up to Andreas, who placed the bolt in great style while free climbing. Bolt in place and confidence boosted he committed to the move, exited to the left and disappeared out of sight for me. What followed was a series of flying bushes and smaller blocks, the cleaning continued, and the occasional psyched screaming – for those who don’t know, if you hear Andreas screaming things are usually getting steeper and more exposed, and he is absolutely loving it. A short while after he found the next belay and I followed up. This second pitch is super enjoyable: a techy traverse, then a technical and increasingly pumpy crack, the exit on slopers, followed by another cruxy section on a vertical face with crimps. Both quite happy with the pitch and about half way up the wall we continued on.
The third pitch climbs quite pleasantly and has a bit of an alpine ridge feeling to it. The only harder moves are towards the end to get to the third belay on a ledge. The downside to the easier terrain on the third pitch is the amount of gardening that had to be done. By this point, we were both covered in soil from head to toe. With this in mind, we decided to continue straight ahead instead of going to the right to a quite appealing looking but also heavily overgrown dihedral.
The last pitch starts with a quite fun corner to gain a ledge. From there we traversed a bit to the left to a tree. From the tree upwards is where the last pitch becomes a bit harder. The angle gets steeper and the last move to exit onto a ledge with trees is quite overhanging and pumpy. Unfortunately, again a lot of cleaning was needed, which made the exit even more pumpy. Finally, he made it to the top and I followed up. Especially the last bit turned out quite tough for me, climbing with the extra weight of a drill and spare batteries in my backpack on overhanging terrain really isn’t that easy and it makes you appreciate the efforts that people put into developing routes!
By the time we were both at the top of the last pitch the sun started to set, so, with headtorches ready on our helmets we continued moving towards Buffavento castle. This last scrambly bit is on quite easy terrain but with the fatigue of the day and loose blocks all around you have to take care. But what an exit of a route this is! The Pentadaktylos range in your back, the sunset colours over the sea and then climbing into an over 1000-year-old castle at the top of a mountain, it really doesn’t get much better than this! Super happy with the efforts of our day we took a short moment to take it all in and then started our descent down the windy path. Since it was already dark by the time we reached the visitor’s car park we decided to play it safe and walk back to our car on the asphalt road, but as we learned on a more recent excursion to the area, there is a very well marked hiking path that starts at the car park and traverses the hill all the way to where we parked the car.
This trad route (plus one bolt) together with the relatively long approach surely isn’t for everyone out there, but for those who love a good dose of adventure, it is absolutely worth it. The climbing is really good and varied, every pitch offers a bit of a different climbing style, the rock quality is very good as well and the worst part of the cleaning is done, so no more big loose blocks around. And then at the end being able to top out at the castle feels like the ultimate reward for all your efforts.
