Kyparissi – Watermill

Crag Summary

A beautiful drive south of Leonidio, a picture-perfect little town and quite a few crags to pick from (see ‘Nearby’ section below for others in Kyparissi that were recommended to us). We ended up at Watermill in search of morning sun and a wide range of grades and styles. The routes we tried here were long, technical and had a little sting in the tail with a final kick-back in steepness plus some cool tufa features. Not too much for the kids to climb, but a super short approach so you can’t regret coming and checking it out.

• Style: single-pitch sport
• Parking: 36.95751, 22.98592 – not too much space and on a hairpin bend so take care to tuck in.
• Topo and Approach details:
  • The Panjika Cooperative climbing guidebook covers Kyparissi too.
  • The Crag provides route lists and parking/approach info.
• We visited on: Tuesday, 27th November 2024
• Who else was there: quite a few other climbing parties – enough routes to spread out along the base.

Nearby

Leonidio is 50 minutes north, up the coast. The road between Leonidio and Kyparissi is new and provides beautiful views [as of June 2025 googlemaps does not provide the coastal road between Leonidio and Kyparissi – check locally but this new road is an absolute must as it is much shorter than going inland, great condition and stunning]

Kyparissi itself is host to a bunch of other crags. We did not have time to check them out but Kastráki was recommended as kid-friendly, has lots of mid-grade options and has the opposite sun to Watermill (morning shade, afternoon sun). Playground was also recommended, a slightly smaller crag with slightly lower grades again and morning sun.

The village itself is very pretty – we would need to be careful driving around in our 7m vehicle but if we’d had more time it would have been nice to park-up and explore it further.