UKC

Going to Paklencia in Croatias in a few weeks with some US friends..We have heard that some of the longer routes need gear.... If so is this primarily wires or cams?  Also the longer routes - are these walk off or abseil descent? Can these be descended with a 70m rope or do you need two ropes? eg in the event of failure on a route

Thanks for any info

Simon

It has been a long while since I've been but I remember mostly using nuts not cams, but you could use cams too. I'm almost certain I went with two 50m ropes too and abseiled off most of the long multi-pitch routes I did but there were some that had a short abseil and mostly a walk off.

I believe at the time I was climbing no more than 6a so likely doing up to 5b multi-pitch grades. Got your eyes on any specific climbs?

No specific climbs at the moment.  We can typically climb 6b - 6c in the gym so probably more like 6a - 6b outside at a new area.  But we are all old and chicken so that's likely to be the dominating factor!

A lot of the more traditional multipitch climbs were pretty stiffly graded with spaced bolts/pegs. Crux pitches were often bolted or pegged so you could aid them however. We took cams from purple to yellow and a full set of nuts and that made most things fairly nicely protected. The guidebook is really well written and available in Starigrad. We had a 70m single which was enough to run pitches together and abseil one pitch at a time. 

Amazing place, the gorge has lots of nice swimming spots and the routes on Anica Kuk have a real atmosphere. The food and people in town were great too. 

Thx sounds great

A quote to bear in mind - not mine, but it does seem quite appropriate: “the hardest 6b I’ve done was a 5b at Paklenika”!