Sometimes some of the best trips are those where everything goes wrong. In 2009 I thought I'd go for a blether with Zeus on Mount Olympus in Greece, but the fates had decided otherwise before I even left. Going in April was mistake number one. Olympus gets proper full-on winter conditions, sometimes with temperatures as low as -20C, but by April things are starting to warm up a bit, the snow is softer and avalanches are common. So nobody climbs Olympus in April.
I found a ridiculously cheap flight to Thessaloniki (which was an interesting destination for me because my grandfather was based there for a good chunk of World War One). The only problem from my point of view was that it was from Gatwick, so a long drive from the Highlands. I decided to turn this into an advantage and get in some gritstone bouldering and visit my mum in Lichfield. The Roaches have some of the best slab climbing anywhere, both on routes and boulders, but they aren't my lucky place. As a student I had my only ever serious accident in 40 years of climbing there and another time sprained an ankle falling off a boulder problem. I now made this the proverbial three mishaps by slipping off the top move of a delicate slab, cracking a bone in my hand on landing. A hospital wouldn't have done anything other than tell me to rest it so there was no point in going to one. I went to the pub instead.
Mishap number two was getting food poisoning from the seafood lasagne I ate in said pub. I spent most of the next morning on the loo, then got down to Lichfield in short hops. There was no way I was going to be mobile the next day so I re-arranged the flights and airport hotel through an agency. Two days later I turned up at the hotel and they said they had no booking for me. A phone call to the agency eventually elicited that they had changed my booking to another hotel, but had omitted to tell me this. The second hotel was actually much nicer though, a 17th century country house, and still at the previous price. Mishap number three turned into a plus.
Mytikas, the highest summit of Olympus, from below Refuge A
I turned up at the airport the next morning and again the agency had screwed up and I wasn't booked on. Luckily the flight wasn't full so I got a seat without a problem. Mishap number four was easily solved. Things then actually went smoothly for a while, with a cheap but very friendly hotel in Thessaloniki and a bus to Litochoro, the village at the foot of Olympus. I didn't find anybody there who spoke English but booked into a back street guest house where the owner had lived in Germany for a while and was prepared to put up with my dreadful German. There was a young Canadian lad also staying so we went down to a local bar for food. One drink turned into several and we then had all sorts of fun and games trying to find the guest house in the dark. We had been chatting too much on the way down to the pub and neither of us had paid enough attention to the way we were going. After an hour wandering around empty back streets in the early hours of the morning we eventually met somebody who knew the guest house owner and showed us where it was. Our mistake solved by a bit of local kindness and the fact that in a small village everybody knows everybody else.
Above Prionia
I knew that the mountain refuge that most people use to climb the mountain was going to be shut out of season, but had read that the warden lived in Litochoro and you could pick up the key there. Unfortunately they had gone on holiday because "nobody climbs Olympus in April". No problem, I had bivvy gear and could sleep outside the hut. I just needed fuel for my stove, which I got from a local shop. My Greek being non-existent this involved lots of pointing and arm waving, but I came away with a bottle of clear liquid which the shop owner assured me would go "Whoosh!" and burn.
Prionia Refuge A
The Canadian lad fancied a walk so we split the cost of a taxi to the roadhead and walked up to the snowline together, a few hundred feet below the refuge. He had no boots, just trainers, so turned back at the snow and I went on up to the hut. As expected it was locked, but it had a nice spacious verandah outside. I arranged my sleeping bag on it and settled down for an evening drinking tea. Here I discovered mistake number four (or is it five, I'd lost count by this stage). The fuel I had bought was for a lamp, and wouldn't work in a stove. Presumably it made the lamp go "whoosh" effectively, but it was no use to me. I had malt loaf and mars bars for food, but as everything was frozen no fuel meant meant no water (and of course no tea – aargh!). There was a drip coming off a gutter from the snow covered roof so I positioned a pan under this and in an hour or two had an inch of water in the bottom of it. The roof snow then froze, so that would have to do for the night and morning.
Not a stream at the moment!
I had read that there were wolves on Olympus, and could now tell that this was true as I could hear them howling. As it got dark I even saw shadows with glowing yellow eyes amongst the scattered trees around the hut. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't imagining them. Rationally I know that wolf attacks on humans are vanishingly rare, but there's a primal anxiety that gets fired up when you're all alone in the dark and know they're out there. I placed my ice axe right next to my sleeping bag just in case, although I assume a determined wolf would have got me long before I could have used it. Actually I slept like a log, and in the morning there were wolf footprints coming right onto the verandah and stopping a few feet from me, presumably at the point where this odd slug-like thing started to smell as human. I hadn't woken.
Breakfast was at least quick – a sip of the last of the water and a mars bar, then I was off up through the trees and out into pristine snowfields. It was a bleak grey morning and the cloud was down on the tops, but you could see there were breaks in it and now and again craggy peaks appeared.
Stavroities, one of the minor peaks SE of Mytikas
The snow was knee deep and soft, hard going, but not steep enough to give any avalanche risk. An hour or so above the hut I actually met someone, much to the surprise of both of us. He was a Greek mountaineer who spoke good English, just out for a lowish stroll over a pass. He warned me against attempting Mytikas (the highest peak) as the slabs at the foot of the summit rocks would be loaded with soft snow and a high avalanche risk. I noted his comments and followed a nice safe ridge up to the easiest of the four main summits, Skala. I did go and have a look at the slabs he mentioned and he was absolutely right, they were lethal. I decided to be sensible for once and went back over Skala and followed a lovely ridge out to Skolio, the mountain's fourth summit. This was quite narrow in walking terms, but easy. It felt very Scottish in the conditions, reminiscent of the Grey Corries or parts of the Mamores, and the weather certainly added to that.
A warning shot
I could have gone down directly to the hut but in the deep soft snow it was easier (and probably safer) to take advantage of the trail I'd just made and go back over Skala. With all the big steps descent was quick, and by then I was really thirsty so I headed on down to the land of running water. Back down at the trailhead the bar was open. My first thought was food, honest! Inside were two Danish lads, busy living up to their nation's reputation for beer consumption. I joined them and they told me about their trip to a place called the Pilio. It sounded great, jagged rocky coast, beaches and sunshine, a total contrast to misty hills in soggy snow. I obviously wasn't going to get up either of the harder summits of Olympus in the conditions so took their recommendation. It was a good choice for once, I had a lovely three days scrambling around the coast and swimming, with a couple of minor hills. The delicious fish in the evenings was a huge improvement on malt loaf too (fond as I am of it). I had a great evening in a village bar with all the locals, watching PAOK Salonika beat Olympiacos. Northern Greeks hate the big Athens teams and it was party time. My lack of Greek and their lack of English were completely irrelevant.
Polidendri Beach, Pilio
Then it was a return to mishaps. I lost my mobile phone on the bus into town and caught a flu bug somewhere. Bird flu was just starting to become an international problem so on arrival back in the UK I reported to hospital for a test and ended up being whisked into isolation as a suspected case. Luckily I had a good book and after a day they decided that it was probably just normal flu and let me go.
Put the mistakes and mishaps all together (broken hand, food poisoning, hotel and flight hassles, lack of hut key, fuel foul up, avalanche risk, losing my phone and bird flu isolation) then it sounds like the trip was an absolute fiasco, but actually I had a hugely enjoyable time. I didn't get up my main objectives, but the two peaks I did climb were fun (once above the wading anyway) and the Pilio was a gorgeous relaxing place.
Near Trikeri, Pilio
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