Hiking on a Good Friday

Most of the times, weather is gloomy on such a day. Either cloudy or rainy, the weather emits sadness. I remember my mother always said, ”it’s always raining on Good Fridays. It’s because Jesus was crucified on that day and the sky is weeping…!”
When I woke up on that Good Friday, I got out from the caravan and took a slow 360deg round turn trying to give a long and detailed inspection of the morning sky and to assess the possibilities for a rain later that day.
Rain appeared to be somewhere near, but it was definitely not its time yet. Few scattered clouds on the horizon on the south west, with a few shades of grey on them, were holding the possibility of keeping the rainy-Good-Fridays tradition rather high.

”M” was still finding it rather hard to abdicate the coziness of the morning bed and kept on lying, wandering between sleep and consciousness.

Snow slides

Ever since we met, “M” would always grasp the oppotunity and describe to me, in the most fascinating and lyrical words, the emotions that someone gets while skiing down a snowy slope. Most of those times, she was describing the experience she had obtained when she had attempted skiing, without even taking any lessons, a few years back while her outback travelling in South America, and she urged me to take her word for how beatiful it would be if we would only try this together.
I was a bit sceptical about the whole venture, since the idea of myself, being with both feet locked upon two long planks of wood and sliding down on icy snow, appeared a bit scary and even worse sounded more like a death-threat towards all the living creatures and growing trees that might get into my vicinity.

After almost two years of confronting “M” persuasion tactics, …..I gave in!

“Parnitha Small Round” Revisited in white…!

It was the last Friday of the year and we had just returned from our Christmas holidays at a skiing resort, in northwestern Greece. “M” had used up all her leave and she had to get back to work. I had a few more days left and so decided to stay off work for one more day…
We woke up early, like all regular working days. Had coffee and got ourselves ready. I had decided to drive “M” to work and then take a small hike at Parnitha. I remembered that one week ago, the meteorologists had said something about “light snowfalls” at Parnitha and the low temperatures that followed that day made me hoping for some more snow ….. I packed my racksack light and we went off. To be totally honest, I wasn’t expecting much as fas as snow is concerned, but it was a far better idea than staying in or footling around….

I left “M” and drove off. There was no traffic and soon found myself driving up the swirling road of the mountain. I had decided to follow once more the same trail we had recently hiked with “M” around the summit. I wanted to find some alternate ending, in order avoid passing throught the burnt zone. A few kilometeres before reaching the point from which I would start my hike, I realised that the snow would be far more than what I had initially expected.

Parnitha Small Round

We had always wanted to try a whole new trail route. A route that neither we nor any of our friends would have ever followed through before and which we would some kind of create it ……while underway.
About two months ago, we had decided to stay in Athens for the weekend and for some reason no plans were made with our usual activities.
Despite being in the heart of autumn, we had woken up in a bright and rather warm sunny day. A feeling more similar to the one that someone gets when he wakes up during an early spring morning, was spread out all over our flat. The contrast between the luminous blue sky and our concrete-made ceiling made us yearning for the outdoors. It was the perfect occasion for us to try out having our long time wished sort-of-mapping mountain walk….

Mystical Rocks

About a year ago, “M” and I, decided to take a few days off around the period of New Year’s Eve and make a short trip to Thessaloniki. We both had some friends of our own living there and we reckoned it was a great opportunity to spend some time with them and at the same time have our small getaway from everyday life.
We were both fed up with programming of our every day life commitments that we really couldn’t bother with flight schedules and train timetables. We just wanted to take our time and enjoy the whole thing, including the process of getting there. So, we decided to drive and spare ourselves from airplanes, airports, trains and train stations.
A couple of days before our short vacations begin, it hit us: “why don’t we make a small detour and spent a night or two in some other place? Just for the sake of making our trip more interesting….” The decision came instantly. We both had never seen Meteora before and we both always wanted to go there. So, that was the time to do it…

A Sunday walk at Gerania Mountains

I remember that during the whole week we were discussing with “M” that the weekend to come would be a weekend dedicated to “ultimate relaxation”…..
We thought we needed a small break from everything, no matter if that was called hiking or cycling or if it was simply involving going out and doing stuff with friends, like we usually do the times we stay in Athens.

So, we decided to spend the weekend at my parents’ cottage, a place that we don’t actually visit so often. The fact that the house is not far from Athens, was just perfect for us, since we wouldn’t have to spend the finite time of a weekend driving in a car.
Despite the fact that the place we would go is located by the seaside and under the foothills of Gerania Mountains, thus combining both sea and mountain, it didn’t seem to matter for us that much, at least for that particular weekend. Our plans did not include any of the usual activities.

On Friday evening we left Athens and got to the cottage, feeling really content that a full weekend of relaxation was lying ahead of us.

The accomplishment of a promise…

This time it was something like keeping our word….

Not that we did it compulsively. No, not at all!! It was more like when you have discussed many times with a friend about how much you both want to meet and eventually a day comes and you know that it’s now or who knows when….

It was almost four months ago. We were walking back from Dirfys’ peak. I was watching “M” walking a few steps ahead of me and was admiring that determined walking style of hers. It was then, seeing her walking this way and heading coincidentally towards Xerovouni that was lying at the horizon ahead of us, that the idea of climbing Xerovouni was planted into my head. Xerovouni had to be next! At least, as far as prefecture of Evia was concerned.

Mount Dirfys, at last….!

It was about two months ago when we eventually admitted that Dirfys’ hike could not be postponed any further…..! Dirfys peak (1,743mts) is the highest peak on Evoia and the view,…… is just splendid. “M” and myself usually spend our weekends at a seaside place, which is really close to Dirfys and it seemed to us rather unacceptable not to have climbed at the top. Especially after considering how many times we had visited the area that far. So, that weekend we had carried our hiking shoes along as well as the rest of our gear and we had promised that this time we would climb up, no matter what.

Sunday morning, we got up, had coffee and some light breakfast, dressed up and drove off towards the start of the hiking path. Despite the fact that the hiking route at its first part was actually a secondary dirt road which was driving all the way towards the EOS Refuge and could bring us a lot closer to the point from which the interesting climbing part would begin, we decided to get the whole deal and hike all the way right from the start of that dirt road. So, we left our car at the side of the road, grabbed our gear and set off.

A Double Parnitha on the ice, please…!

Two weeks before Christmas and the meteorologists on tv started talking about some heavy snow coming on.

The “worst” weather, they said, was expected  around weekend and heavy snowfalls were forecasted even for the northern subusrbs of Athens. “Fingers crossed” I said, “and maybe, ….who knows, they will come true at last”!
It was Friday morning and the winds had already started becoming gradually stronger and chillier. When eventually the first snowflakes made it to the groung level, we had the first sign that the weather-people had a bulls-eye and that the long-desired snow was eventually “at the gates”.

And there it was, a “white day” at last!!!! …..and what a day, Saturday!!!!! My favourite day of the week.
“Come on, love. Rise and shine!” I urged “M”, while jumped myself out of bed. “We have to get ready, …Parnitha is all ready and waiting for us”, and putting my serious face on, added to that ….. “Will not seem nice to be late, you know”.
“M” smiled, thought of the warm scent of the toasted sandwiches, with banana, nuts, peanutbutter, honey and cinammon, which we usually make in such circumstacesand, got herself a nice boos,t that she apparently needed, stretched a bit and then got herself out of bed as well.

We had breakfast, packed our staff, got ourselves all dressed up for that special occasion and headed out.

It was still snowing and from distance the mountain seemed to be quite foggy above 700mts. There weren’t expected many hikers on the mountain at that specific day and with these conditions we decided we should do a trail that we had done a few times in the past and it was familiar enough for us to carry on when the trail-signals would be probably lost because of snowfall, at some point. I knew that Parnitha’s trails are mainly signalled by paint marks on tree trunks or on big ground-rooted rocks and having them covered by snow was a proximate probability in such a weather. We thought a bit and decided to follow the Chounis’ Gorge trail ,which is starting from the edge of Thrakomakedones and is climbing all the way to Flambouri Refuge. We drove up to the mountain foothills, at the edge of Thrakomakedones town, parked our car, lifted the windscreen wipers up, put our jackets and bacpacks on and set off.

“Being Out There” fever….

Saturday morning and for some undefined reason, …..no plans made for the weekend.

It must have been around 9:00am when all of a sudden, “M” and myself, while laying in our bed, shortly after being awaken by the morning sun sneaking through the window shields, catching up consciousness with our eyes nailed on the bedroom white ceiling, started feeling the old-familiar “being-out-there” fever crawling up, from our deepest guts within to our foreheads and into our brains….

It was then, after laying a bit like that and experiencing the anxiety of the wasted-weekend-probability, that  the walls in our very room felt like they started moving towards one another and the room itself started becoming worryingly smaller and smaller….

Packing fast and running out from our own flat seemed like the only option….!!!

And there we were…..Soon enough we were driving down the National road with all our hiking and biking gear stuffed into our car, running away from the “devil’s city”. Our destination was a place I always wanted to visit and “M” was glad to come along. The Mount of Ziria.