Olympus

I hurt all over. I can't go up or down steps without wincing. My leg muscles have gone from feeling great to feeling gelatinous to feeling like someone attacked them with a baseball bat. But I did climb Mount Olympus.
When it comes to field trips, I think Zeus hates me, because it rained at the beach last weekend, and it rained on Saturday, starting at about 3am, when I was awakened by a torrential rainstorm and had to run and close my windows. It died down in the morning as were boarding the buses for Olympus, but by the time we reached Prionia, it was pouring again, and my backpack was soaked before we even set foot on the trail. I was thanking every deity in the Pantheon that I had borrowed a windbreaker at the last minute; I had been planning to bring just a heavy sweatshirt, but Teresa, the assistant director of the dorms, came along just in time to talk some sense into me. (I did attend the information session, but it was largely in Greek, and although I did have translation for most of it, there may have been some parts I missed. I did understand lots of words like "shoes","very cold","shirts","flowers", etc. However, I only understand when people talk very, very slowly, so at a normal Greek pace, (ie, at the speed of light with no discernable pauses between words) I have hard time telling "Bring extra shirts and don't pick the flowers" from "Bring extra shirts and make sure they have floral patterns on them.")
Anyway, Prionia was the start of our trek. In case you are picturing some sort of town or village, I should explain that Prionia is Greek for "Parking Lot with Drinking Water, Mule Pen and Locked Bathrooms." Why were the bathrooms locked? I don't know. There were definitely quite a few people who wanted to use them. However, I am starting to learn that in Greece, you can never count on things being open when you would like them to be open, so I was not terribly surprised to find them closed.
So we started up the path, through the raininess and mud. It wasn't a tough hike at the beginning; one of our guides had told me to expect something akin to hiking in Maine, and in some ways it did remind me of Maine,(evergreen trees, etc) though it was a bit steeper than the hikes I've taken there. Here's a picture taken on the lower part of the mountain, between Prionia and the Refuge:


Apparently, it usually takes hikers between one and a half to four hours to get to the refuge in nice weather. In the rain, we all somehow made it in under three. When I say "we all", I'm referring to Brad and I, several Anatolia teachers and alums who were acting as guides and chaperones, and about sixty-five high school seniors. It wasn't pouring all the way up there, luckily, though it was definitely damp, and did get a bit chilly. We were below the tree line (the refuge is just about at the point where the trees stop) so we were somewhat protected from the weather, and there was the psychological advantage of knowing that something was there to catch you if you happened to topple off the path, not that anyone did. Actually, I have to say that I was just thrilled about the cold, at lest for a little while. Remember, I've spent the past month in the Greek sun, which is a little more intense than I'm used to, especially in September. My internal seasonal clock has spent the past few weeks shrieking "Why the hell is it so damn hot outside?" I definitely spent some time hiking through the 50 degree drizzle in a t-shirt, and it felt so wonderful. I was ecstatic. I think some of the Greeks might have thought I was completely crazy.

(Random Weather-and-Dampness-Related Digression: Speaking of cold and damp, I've noticed that Greeks react in horror whenever they see me walking around with wet hair. Since I've never actually used a hairdryer, I am used to American people admonishing me about my frozen hair in the winter. However, lately, whenever I wash my hair I'll have someone Greek ask "Aren't you afraid, walking around with wet hair?" My answer is usually a confused "Afraid of what? It's seventy-five degrees outside...")

Anyway, we reached the refuge at about a quarter to five. The refuge is a sort of hostel type place for hikers to stay on their way up the mountain. They have food, wine, lots of tea, coffee and hot chocolate, beds, snacks, drinking water and toilets. Of course, the toilets are Turkish-style; for those of you unfamiliar with that term "Turkish Toilet", it's basically a euphemism for "hole in the floor." However, a hole in the floor is way better than a hole in the woods if you ask me, so I was not complaining.

The Refuge was packed. There were even people sleeping in the dining room, because who wants to camp in the rain? We all ate lots of dinner, drank lots of tea and some wine, and went to bed at 1O pm. It was a cold night. I slept in sweatpants and a longsleeved shirt, with two blankets on top of me, and I was still a bit chilly. The novelty of the cold was definitely starting to wear off. We were told that the nighttime temperature was below zero degrees Celsius, which means it was somewhere in the twenties. (I am completely incapable of converting Celsius into Fahrenheit and vice versa. I spent an entire semester in London making inaccurate guesses about the weather and I will likely spend a year in Greece doing the same because I just cannot seem to get the conversion information through my utterly unmathematical brain.) Getting up in the dark at 6am is not easy in that sort of weather, but we did it. Its a good thing the lodge had coffee. I briefly wondered if my normal two cups of coffee was bad idea on this particular day; would it be worse to climb Olympus while caffeine deprived, or to climb Olympus while needing to pee? Caffeine deprivation won out in the end but luckily neither was a problem.

By the way, here is a picture of the view from the lodge:



We started climbing again at around 745 on Sunday morning. After an hour or so, we were well above the trees, and the farther we climbed, the more snow there was on the ground. It was foggy, and so there was not much of a view. It started to look something like this:





I confess that at this point, I was starting to get scared. The path was getting increasingly slippery, and I was afraid that coming down was going to be unpleasant, especially since I was not the only one wearing running shoes and not hiking boots. (They would have taken up half my suitcase!) The large amounts of fog (or should I say cloud) made it seem unlikely that we would see much at the top, and I was really enthusiastic about certain portions of the trail that seemed to go awfully close to huge menacing precipices. In fact, the first time I came close enough to see over the edge of the huge cliff we were on, I found myself shaking a bit, quite literally. Shaking is not a helpful climbing technique.

It occurred to me that perhaps Olympus was the home of immortal beings for a reason, namely the fact that has a way of claiming the lives of those who are not immortal. I decided that if I were a god, I would certainly make Olympus my home, and maybe equip it with a supernatural flying chariot system, public restrooms and an Indian restaurant. However, being mortal, I decided that avoiding an early death might be a good idea. Actually, our guide seemed to agree with me on this, and I found that heartening...until he explained that he was still recieving orders to go ahead through the snow. "Come on!" Our other guide tried to encourage me and the others who were scared. "Dont you want to be able to tell your grandchildren you saw Skolio?" I tried to explain that I wasnt going to have the opportunity to have grandchildren if I died within the next few hours, but nonetheless, we plunged ahead.

We reached Skala a few minutes later. Skala is Greek for "Ice encrusted sign pointing the way to Skolio" Here is Skala:



Skolio, our destination, is the second highest peak on on Olympus, only seven metres shorter than Mitykas, which is the mythical home of the Gods. It was a very short walk from Skala, and it was quite beautiful. It was at Skala that I decided that the climb had not been such a bad idea after all. We all got some rest, took lovely pictures, and marveled at the German hikers who were drinking beer on the mountaintop. It was still cold, foggy and snowy, but the view was pretty nice anyway. Here are some pictures. Im even in one of them, just so you all know that I am not just posting postcard images and making stuff up. I really did make it all the way up there, see:



I confess that I was still terrified of the trip back. However, once we got going, the clouds parted, the snow and ice melted, and the fog lifted. The view was absolutely unbelievable. I'll show you pictures, but I dont think they can do it justice. I felt kind of like I was inside an issue of National Geographic. Even the heights stopped bothering me. I tried to compare the Olympus precipice to a New York subway platform; in each case, one step over the edge could certainly cause death, but that just means you just damn well better not take that step over the edge.

Anyway, once the clouds lifted, the entire trip became more than worth it. It was even worth all of the pain that I'm in right now as I limp around the dorm. It is one of the most exciting things I've done in quite some time.

The trip back was easier in most ways, and a whole lot quicker. We stopped at the lodge for lunch, a little bit more wine, and some rest, then finished the last leg of the trip by 4:30pm or so. I think the bus ride home took about two hours, but it only felt like half an hour or son, because I was in a daze of exhaustion.

Anyway, here are some more pictures, and trust me, I've got lots more to show you...but right now I'm going to sit down and stretch for a little while longer.