Page Type:
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Route |
|---|---|
Route Type:
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Trad Climbing |
Season:
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Spring, Summer, Fall |
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Time Required:
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Half a day |
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Difficulty:
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V (UIAA) |
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Number of Pitches:
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5 |
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Grade:
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II |
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Overview
P4
P3
Getting There
Hermitages
As you drive north from Kalambaka towards Kastraki, you will pass an indistinct rightward fork (pointers to some hotels visible) shortly before entering Kastraki proper. Take this narrow road which will put you above the village. The road makes a run-around a low and slabby formation. Immediately past this formation (Pixari is above this little “pedestal”) and past some park benches, look for a pullout. Locate a trail up the slabby rock. Once on top, follow the trails in the direction of Archimedes’s base. Approach time is 5 minutes.
Route Description
P2
P4Pitch 1: III, 120 feet. Climb the slabby and well featured rock up towards the base of the chimney system. No protection. Look for a single ring bolt belay on the left.
Pitch 2: III, 120 feet. Move up the low angle crack toward the chimney system. Good pro. Belay from another single ring bolt anchor on your left.
Pitch 3: V, 140 feet. Now the fun begins. Hike up easy ground deeper into the guts of Pixari. Clip a bolt on the left and start chimneying upwards. One more ring bolt on the left wall, some tat around a rock horn are all you get (unless you have some large gear I’d guess). Belay at double ring bolt anchor just above a 2-foot rock embedded in the wall. We thought the pitch favors those with longer legs.
Pitch 4: V, 100 feet. The crux pitch. Climb up and out over the void 25 feet and clip a ring bolt. Move up past some chockstones (fixed tat) and either climb on the outside (scary) or up the squeeze chimney between some embedded rocks. Belay at a stance from a ring bolt.
Pitch 5: III, 160 feet. Climb the easy (mostly horizontal) chimney to another ring bolt on the left wall or continue up some slabby/easy ground to an un-roping spot.
Descent:
The guidebook (Vol. 1) mentions a 35-meter rappel as a means of getting down. We did not find it. If you have good information on this, please add it here.
The rap we did instead (Vol. 2 shows this rap line which uses the Geiersturzflug VII+ anchors) was easy but it took 3 double rope raps. From top of route, locate the summit register: basically up and (climber’s) left as you top out on the route. From summit, hike down (unexposed) and right (initially SW towards Grosse Heilige, then S). As you get to lowest slabby ledge systems, there’s a pair of rap bolts on roughly a horizontal slab facing the gully between Pixari and Grosse Heilige (that’s the large formation looming tall and nearby – can’t miss it). Three DOUBLE rope (we used 60 meter – the 2nd rap seemed quite long especially) raps put you in the gully between Pixari and Grosse Heilige. Hike down gully, pass a monastery on your right and down to the road you drove up.
Essential Gear
P4
P5One set of cams from about #0.5 Camalot to largest (#5 or #6). If you have extra of the largest ones & are not too comfy on chimneys...
rpc - Mar 24, 2009 11:57 am - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!Borut, are you sure about "forbidden" (discouraged perhaps on most routes, no?).... Greek climbers posting beta pages here also incl. a couple cams under gear. On this particular route they really don't help where it counts anyway. Also, if minimizing traffic on routes is important here, I'd be happy to take the page off of SP - I really don't care & I'm OK with whatever Meteora regulars on SP decide (I already enjoyed the route & don't need more beta :). As a side note, I would prefer not to fall on any trad gear placed in Meteora rock, that is for sure. Let me know your thoughts - we can also ask the Meteora page owner for opinion as well. Again, I'm OK either way. Cheers.
rpc - Mar 24, 2009 2:01 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!Borut - no problem, input is appreciated (that's what that "corrections" option is for). Sorry if I misunderstood. But I really am willing to give the page to someone more local if it makes sense. Good climbing to you Sir!
Nikolas_A - Sep 26, 2013 1:17 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!I can't see Borut's comment but I don't thing there's anything wrong with your description. About the Meteora page maintainers, Irma hasn't shown up in 5 years, and Teo was killed descending from Matterhorn, after an ascent through the North Face.
rpc - Sep 26, 2013 1:54 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!Hi Nikolas, thanks for the additions to the route pages. Sad to hear about Irma. Would you be willing to take over my Meteora pages here on SP? Seems you climb there quite a bit & I think they'd benefit from an overall update. Let me know. Radek PS what a spectacular place - wish we could go back sometime.
Nikolas_A - Nov 8, 2013 1:47 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!You mean sad to hear about Teo! Irma is just inactive on SP. Yeah, I thought about adopting the whole Meteora page, I'm a bit short of time though. I'll ask nkroup, he is more active there, if he can't I just might. If you come to Greece again let me know, plenty of great places to climb!
rpc - Nov 8, 2013 4:18 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: The few rings!My bad - I mistyped (sorry). Let me know if you find someone reputable to take over the Meteora stuff from me. Actually, heard about some long multipitch (somewhere on the coastline??) ridge climb in Greece...sounded great & I've been curious about it. Do you know what/where it might be? Will email you with some (more intelligent) questions if I can find the original bit that I saw. Thanks Nikolas.