Seb Bouin

Greece 🇬🇷 -
« Gorilles Stin Omichli extension » (9a?) - second go ✅

Elona project
Kyparissi

I kept trying this pretty unique project in Elona. The line is really cool—it climbs up two very thin tufas. There’s a first 7a+ approach, and right after that a boulder crux (around 8a boulder) on beautiful pinches to reach a stunning endurance section on two thin columns. To finish, there’s a gorgeous section on orange rock with a right-hand dyno (in the photo).

This route wasn’t supposed to be that hard at first, but I broke the key left-hand tufa several times in the crux, which made the section harder and harder… 😅

In the end, I didn’t manage to send it quickly and had to choose between exploring Greece to see its potential or staying longer to finish this route. Since I didn’t have much time, I chose exploration, and we went to Kyparissi to discover this little paradise.

On my first day and second go, I sent “Gorilles Stin Omichli extension.” It’s graded 9a in the guidebook, but with knee pads it felt more like 8c to me.

Time to start bolting now 🔥

📸 .bgdb

Le chant des muses - FA 9b/5.15b
Breakdown

There aren’t many lines like this one!
You have to follow the crest of this beautiful prow to fight through a real endurance battle.

The final moves are extremely hard to execute with the fatigue already in your arms. You need to hold onto those tiny micro-holds to escape the steepness, throwing your left hand far out to a distant sloper. Once you stick the sloper, it’s normally finito.

To go a bit deeper, here’s a more detailed description of the route.

It starts with a first 8c, quite physical. There’s a bouldery compression move on the very aesthetic prow. After that comes endurance climbing in the overhang just below the prow.

Here you reach a knee-bar rest. The goal: try to refresh as much as you can. But that’s not always easy…

Then you return to the prow for the final battle, where you have to climb a short but intense 8c+ section on small holds. That’s really what makes the route hard: you need strong fingers after already many meters of physical climbing.

This route deserves attention 👀
Video coming soon