A small Dodecanese island whose guidebook now lists 4,216 bolted sport routes, spanning a first 4a to the hardest grades, with an international climbing festival the municipality backs each October and a public log of the volunteers who rebolt the crags.
Rock climbing as a sport was born in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1864 gymnasts from Bad Schandau climbed the Falkenstein in Saxon Switzerland, and in June 1886 Walter Parry Haskett Smith climbed Napes Needle in the Lake District, the ascent widely taken as the start of the sport in Britain. The big-wall craft grew up later, in Yosemite. Warren Harding’s team finished the Nose of El Capitan in 1958, after 45 days of climbing spread over eighteen months, and Lynn Hill climbed it free in 1993. That granite is still where the limits move. In January 2015 Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson freed the Dawn Wall after 19 days, and on 3 June 2017 Alex Honnold climbed Freerider alone and without a rope, in 3 hours and 56 minutes.
Learn to lead outdoors on an island with 4,216 bolted routes on it
The clearest community evidence on this craft, and it belongs to the climbers: a public register of who re-bolts which crag, kept by volunteers rather than by anyone renting the rock. Both schools name the person teaching — Joe Fratianni and Simon Montmory — which almost nowhere else here does. The island fills twice a year around it.
Living sceneVerified schoolsRun by Joe Fratianni, an Austrian state-certified instructor in climbing, skiing and alpine disciplines and an AMGA assistant-level guide working toward IFMGA certification, teaching individuals and small groups on Kalymnos and Telendos.
Facts read on the school's own pages, 17 Sep 2026.
Simon Montmory, a certified climbing instructor, runs a laddered set of courses named for the grade they take you to, from a first move outdoors through leading to 7a, plus personalised coaching from 5a to 8a.
Facts read on the school's own pages, 17 Sep 2026.
AMGA / IFMGA Rock Guide (recreational tier: AMGA Single Pitch Instructor) · Certifying body: AMGA / IFMGA (national bodies: BMG, AMGA); UIAA standards
There is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website, and too much of the internet is the second kind. Four instruments do the work, and every one of them is visible on the page you are already on.
If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.
This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.