UKC

If you think of sport climbing in Greece, Kalymnos and Leonidio immediately spring to mind and perhaps Kyprissi or Meteora for those in the know. But there's a new contender which has leapt onto the scene. From Athens, a two-hour drive to the North-east of the island of Evia reveals a landscape of limestone cliffs towering over olive groves, dotted with small sleepy villages. One settlement in particular, the rustic village of Manikia, might just have established itself as a new international sport climbing destination.

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Went to Manikia in March 2022 after a tip off from Claude. Just a warning though as we got snowed in and had to wait a couple of days for the snow plough to arrive and clear all the roads to make our escape to sunnier climes. Hope to make a return visit in better weather. We thought the accommodation was quite expensive compared to Kalymnos and Leonidio. 

We were there a month later and were, I'm afraid, so underwhelmed by the place and the lack of much shade to climb in that we cut out losses on our accomodation and bailed out to the Peloponnese to salvage the trip. Maybe developments have improved it as a destination since though. It would be interesting to hear more views on it as a venue.

I have had the place on my radar for a while but 450 routes from 4 to 8b+ sounds like it leaves things a bit thinly spread for more than a shortish visit. Looks great and I am sure we will get there sometine though,

Chris

Depends on one's ability really! 🤔 

Why? (Assuming an even spread)

https://www.thecrag.com/en/climbing/greece/manikia

It's more even than many destinations but if you are a beginner climbing 4s and 5s, you'd be pretty limited.

I think it's pretty typical for sport climbing destinations to have plenty in the 7s and usually also the 6s and 8s for reasonably well rounded places but in the lower grades there is often comparatively little. Probably a few reasons for that but two of the most obvious are probably that low-angled easier routes are often harder and take longer to clean and, to the equippers putting the routes up, 4s and 5s are so easy that it's hard to summon the motivation to bolt them.

Hello! Has anyone been in mid/end of April to Manikia? Weather reports look all right, but I’d like to hear from someone who has been there in person! Thanks!

I've just come back from Manikia and had a good week (3rd week October)

- it was pretty hot and humid, sunny every day and got to about 25 or 26 ° C so we climbed in the shade everyday except the first.

- while it might not be that high on the radar in the UK, it is very much on the radar in France. Pretty much every crag we visited was busy with French climbers and a few Germans, Greek and East Europeans.

- there are enough routes in the shade for a week but you might be struggling on a longer trip. We were climbing between 5c and 7a. Sentinelle is the only multi-pitch crag in the shade, we did one 4 pitch route which was very good. Other routes on Sentinelle popular as well, saw several parties on it.

- grades are mostly soft holiday grades, but it depends on the crag, some crags reasonably graded but didn't do any routes that were hard for the grade.

- a lot of the crags face south or south west, including most of the multi-pitch routes so a visit when it is cooler would give a lot more options.

- there is a lot of new development plus a lot of undeveloped rock so likely to be many more routes in the next guide and future years.

Dear UKC,

  The cliffs of the Manikia Valley, like the rest of the cliffs of Evia island, have always been known to the local mountaineering club of Chalcis. The first traditional multi-pitch routes were established in the Manikia Valley in 1992. The first ascesionists were local residents who moved and settled in Athens, started rock climbing in the city for the first time and did it as a hobby.

  In a few years the climbing activity in the area of Manikia stopped, until 2015 when the H.M.C. of Chalcis showed the cliffs of the Manikia valley to a French climber, who wanted to establish climbing routes as a private initiative. He possibly saw an opportunity there and spread the word to the local authorities. A year passed and he invited other French to contribute to the efforts. For the rest of the climbing story in Manikia, you can follow the link:

• https://eoschalkidas.gr/eoschalkidas-manikia-crag/

Thank you for the opportunity to share,

The H.M.C. of Chalcis

We stay in Platana now for 9 days and have climbed for 8 days at various crags around Manikia. We are very excited from this place and almost all routes we climbed are excellent. The last days the temperature and clouds allows to climb in the south faces like All the Universe and Rainbow, etc..

We really love to stay here and Platana is a nice base only 20 minutes from the crags.

We are just back from a week in Manikia, I thought it was fantastic. Yes there's not a lot of shady crags, so I'd say November to February would be the best time to go until more shade crag are developed (being developed as we speak by Adrien Boulon). Although if you operate in the mid 7's, the North Face sector has plenty to go at when it's hot. We didn't find it busy at all, sometimes we were the only ones at the crag. Grades are soft. Beach is about 10min drive from Konistres. We mostly ate out every night as it was dirt cheap (gyros 3euro). All the routes we did were all 3 stars, as good as any I've done in Kalymnos or anywhere else, but without the queues and polish. And yes some crag bases are not as comfy as other destinations, not that it bothered us. I'll definitely go back for sure, specially since there seems to be so much development going on. I hope this helps folk in the future.