Conquering Mt. Olympus
What was supposed to be a 2 day hiking trip all on top and around Mt. Olympus ended up being a 1 day hike to the summit and back down to base. Here's how it happened.
We all wake up at 5:30 and are on the road at 6am. We drop Cris off at the train station, he's going to meet his family in Athens, and we drive to the refuge that is above the base city. We arrive there at 6:40 and begin our hike. The hike to the summit is split into three portions: first one is from parking lot to refuge A, refuge A to Zeus' Throne, Zeus' Throne to the summit. The ETA for the first section was 3h and the ETA for the next two were a total of 3h as well. We nailed the first section. Crushed it in 2h on the dot. Path was beautiful and the forest gave splendid sights to enjoy. We took a rest at refuge A, the day before we managed to secure a reservation at this refuge to stay the night. The plan was to summit today, by taking the quick path up, stay the night, then hike up a different path and walk down the supposed scenic path. Sounded like an excellent plan before today. After our break we began the next section. The uphill terrain changed from grassy/boulders to stones and pebbles. That by itself slowed us down a bit. Then we passed the tree line and it was stones/pebbles with the sun bearing down on us. But we drudged along not giving up. Once the summit was visible the path altered its structure. What used to be a winding uphill path of switchbacks has now decided to be a straight path all the way up. When I say all the way up, I mean, the path curved around the mountain and it was a linear path up the mountain. That was the worst of it all. Barely any large stones remained, only the measly weak pebbles remained which I slipped on every so often. Finally, after what felt like 4h had passed we reached Zeus' Throne. Checking the time we made it in 2h. Time for another break time. If all goes according to plan we should reach the summit by noon and enjoy the view without any cloud coverage. Before we set out to begin the vertical climb to the summit somebody has asked to join us. The more the merrier so he tags along and we all ensure none of us fall off the cliffside. Because it's literally a cliff that we have to climb up. What looks like a horizontal distance of 700m took us an hour to climb down and up. I felt pretty great about that one. Once at the summit we took our longest break, had a hearty snack, took photos, sacrificed to the gods, wrote in a book they had at the summit and then walked back to Zeus' Throne. We arduously walked back down the path back to refuge A where we have our reservation. After experiencing one of the paths up the mountain I was not very keen on climbing a different path. My calves, knees, shins, and thighs were all on fire. I looked over at Connor and he had the same look. The look of "I know we planned for two days of this but let's not".
We cancelled our reservation, had a meaty lunch, and then walked all the way back down to where we parked our car. Whenever we talked to someone along the path either up or down, they were always surprised by how fast we had made it to that point. Apparently not many people summit Mt. Olympus and go back to the village the same day. Who would've guessed. All in all it took us 10h. 6h to reach the true summit, and 4h to get back down. Down in the village we saw a video game cafe, guess where we stayed for the next 2h. €1.5 the hour and they had a wide selection of games. Perfect thing to unwind and decompress from hiking the mountain of the gods. Now that we had the next day free. We figured we'd drive part of the way there, find a place to stay the night and then all Saturday we'd be in the beach town which ferries people to Mt. Athos, a semi-autonomous region, governed by Eastern Orthodox priests and monks.
We all wake up at 5:30 and are on the road at 6am. We drop Cris off at the train station, he's going to meet his family in Athens, and we drive to the refuge that is above the base city. We arrive there at 6:40 and begin our hike. The hike to the summit is split into three portions: first one is from parking lot to refuge A, refuge A to Zeus' Throne, Zeus' Throne to the summit. The ETA for the first section was 3h and the ETA for the next two were a total of 3h as well. We nailed the first section. Crushed it in 2h on the dot. Path was beautiful and the forest gave splendid sights to enjoy. We took a rest at refuge A, the day before we managed to secure a reservation at this refuge to stay the night. The plan was to summit today, by taking the quick path up, stay the night, then hike up a different path and walk down the supposed scenic path. Sounded like an excellent plan before today. After our break we began the next section. The uphill terrain changed from grassy/boulders to stones and pebbles. That by itself slowed us down a bit. Then we passed the tree line and it was stones/pebbles with the sun bearing down on us. But we drudged along not giving up. Once the summit was visible the path altered its structure. What used to be a winding uphill path of switchbacks has now decided to be a straight path all the way up. When I say all the way up, I mean, the path curved around the mountain and it was a linear path up the mountain. That was the worst of it all. Barely any large stones remained, only the measly weak pebbles remained which I slipped on every so often. Finally, after what felt like 4h had passed we reached Zeus' Throne. Checking the time we made it in 2h. Time for another break time. If all goes according to plan we should reach the summit by noon and enjoy the view without any cloud coverage. Before we set out to begin the vertical climb to the summit somebody has asked to join us. The more the merrier so he tags along and we all ensure none of us fall off the cliffside. Because it's literally a cliff that we have to climb up. What looks like a horizontal distance of 700m took us an hour to climb down and up. I felt pretty great about that one. Once at the summit we took our longest break, had a hearty snack, took photos, sacrificed to the gods, wrote in a book they had at the summit and then walked back to Zeus' Throne. We arduously walked back down the path back to refuge A where we have our reservation. After experiencing one of the paths up the mountain I was not very keen on climbing a different path. My calves, knees, shins, and thighs were all on fire. I looked over at Connor and he had the same look. The look of "I know we planned for two days of this but let's not".
We cancelled our reservation, had a meaty lunch, and then walked all the way back down to where we parked our car. Whenever we talked to someone along the path either up or down, they were always surprised by how fast we had made it to that point. Apparently not many people summit Mt. Olympus and go back to the village the same day. Who would've guessed. All in all it took us 10h. 6h to reach the true summit, and 4h to get back down. Down in the village we saw a video game cafe, guess where we stayed for the next 2h. €1.5 the hour and they had a wide selection of games. Perfect thing to unwind and decompress from hiking the mountain of the gods. Now that we had the next day free. We figured we'd drive part of the way there, find a place to stay the night and then all Saturday we'd be in the beach town which ferries people to Mt. Athos, a semi-autonomous region, governed by Eastern Orthodox priests and monks.
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