We got into a nice rhythm and added a couple of short pitches to the list, and found the two remaining climbers on an overhanging diagonal crack that should have had the alarm bells ringing like mad, as the pitch was supposed to be 4b, hahaha, suckers! They too binned it dislodging a big block while lowering off, which meant we had the line to ourselves, I got into the mountain mindset and was happily leading 40m pitches with very little gear (malc had a rack, not sure if he carried it as I’d not know what to do with it anyway) and soon enough found myself on the Crux pitch at 5c. Now normally I’d tick a 5c sport route without even noticing it, but as Malc had suggested that it was probably about 5a, I pushed on with no worries, until I got to the hard section, a vertical crack/chimney, slightly polished and with a rope a wire and an old cam littering 5m of it. I really can’t remember how I got up it, but it was tricky, terrifying and then just a “fucking Nightmare” in Julian’s words… to which point I ended in a hanging belay, wondering what on earth I was doing, and how was Malcolm going to get up it with the pig on his back… ( Rucksack with boots water and valuables in it ) as we knew the walk off would be long.
A few more pitches saw us to the top, Malc greeting me with a huge smile and handshake as we topped out on Anica Kuk. Julian and Debbie were supposed to be biting our heels, but more than 2 hours later we were still waiting on the summit as we watched them make their way up the last two pitches. Daylight was fading as we all walked off feeling chuffed that we’d achieved our main objective in the first day as all the others ran away… strange how the rock wasn’t polished above the 5c section….
Domazalski was the objective, four pitches, 5b 6a 5b 6a, mostly slabby but sharp and contrasting, the First pitch was mine, and with the now familiar high death bolts at the start, we both despatched it with no problems and Malc took the first 6a pitch, straight off the belay it was clearly going to be fun, and Malc moved deliberately up the route and clipped a few bolts, before wobbling and peeling off, with his now familiar squeal, he did lose a bit of ankle skin in the process, managed to fall before getting to the hard move. A small crimp , load it left hand, hang it, swing across to huge ‘hidden’ jug and all over… Malc then led the third leaving me with the last, moving right off the belay, someone was clearly poking fun at us by putting the first bolt five meters out across just out of reach, I tried a number of body positions to make the clip and with my foot wedged heel to toe in the runnel, I clipped and slipped a bit, then
rested… well I am a sport climber… the rest was easy and very enjoyable. I did admit that the second pitch was harder, so we both hung on the gear on our respective pitches…. Jools and Debbie had a rest day, well they got spanked on a 5a and drank beer…. I tried a horribly polished 6b+ in the main gorge and failed, which was a bit of a shock. Until some Aussie said, “Don’t worry about it Blue, the grades were years ago before a million hands and feet made it like glass, you can add a full grade to all the routes here”
Malc and Debbie wanted to do Hugga Wugga, a three pitch route in the main area, I managed to persuade Jools into putting his harness on, he then decided to lead a route he thought was 5c, turned out to be a touch harder and very spiky and sharp, we realised we’d climbed Potres 6a, which normally would be a nice little warm up, but was quite tricky through the crux, bolts at less than a meter intervals was probably a clue…
Malc and I decided to try Karabore, and due to Easter climbers descending on Paklenica like flies round my Evolvs, the campsites bulging to the brim, we had to get up early, sadly there were already 4 climbers on the route, so we switched to Pero, harder and it was really worth it. 5c 5c 5b then the top pitch of Karabore 5a, the first pitch nice and technical, solid and sharp, the second, a real joy, and the third, my lead, one of the most enjoyable routes I’ve climbed threading across enormous paper thin stuck on flakes, the final pitch was really nice too, I just followed Malcs blood spots… the Abseil point was crowded and we managed a quick borrow of the abb rope which was long enough to combine the two, I could smell the alloy burning when I got to the base…
