On a recent trip to the popular Greek island of Kalymnos, Marcel Remy was able to on-sight a 6a and, after some work, redpoint a 6b. Not much to shout about by today's standards you may say; but think again, because Marcel was 85 in February this year.

Marcel, who is the father of famous Swiss climbing brothers Claude and Yves Remy, took up climbing at an early age and has not stopped since. Two artificial hips have failed to limit his enthusiasm or his flexibility and two winters ago he was skiing and snowboarding regularly, and surviving the occasional tumble in the process. He visited Kalymnos in 2007 with his sons and began by on-sighting a number of 5s. He then made an excellent ascent of the Diedre Guillot, a sustained 32m, 5c+.

Claude and Yves decided the time was right for an attempt on something harder and pointed him at two of their own routes, both 6a. With encouragement from a large and enthusiastic audience below, Marcel managed to on-sight both: Porni Kini, a steep, 28m wall with big holds in the Arginonta sector, and Maria, a slightly shorter wall climb on the left side of Dodoni.

In 2008 the family was back and Marcel was soon warming up on routes of grade 4 and 5, before making a fine on-sight lead of Mao (6a) in the Poets sector. He then moved to the newly developed Rockland and after a number of attempts managed to redpoint the 6b Birgit. Not surprisingly, 'Mad Dad', as he is affectionately known to his sons, is becoming quite an inspiration to Kalymnos climbers and is hoping to improve on his performance in the future.

Rockland was virgin limestone before this year, when it was developed by the Remy brothers with Boris Girardin. The cliff lies above the new road from Arginonta to Vathi, from where it can be approached in around 25-30 minutes. It now offers 24 routes from 20-33m in height and 5c to 7b+/7c. These represent about half of the new route tally put up by the brothers during their annual visit. Some of the lines are 40m high and, in common with most routes on the island, are very professionally bolted.

However, Claude Remy is issuing a warning about a selection of new routes put up by Greek climbers on the Stimenia. It appears the first ascensionists didn't place conventional bolts but some sort of rings made for mechanical engineering jobs and certainly not manufactured for climbing. Claude points out that this incident is a rare anomoly to the usual high-quality in-situ gear found on the island.

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