Second

The most special thing about this trip are the dates; following the Greek mathematical boot camp underneath Olympus (at Leptokarua) we made our first summit last year reaching the top of Greece, Mitikas on mount Olympus. 

This year on our quest to reach the summit of all ten of Greece's highest mountains we left the comfort of the sea and the places we knew to travel far and wide more than 5 hours away from Olympus, to mount Smolikas.

We drove from the foothills of mount Olympus through the mountains and passed Vassilitsa ski resort, to finally reach the remote and tiny village of Pades.

We reached the village just before nightfall, and settled in to the Mounti Smolikas Inn; an inn run by two friendly fellows and lacking many 5 star comforts in exchange for high altitude mountaineering comforts.

We had a bite after the drive, tasting the small but delicious selection of food that the inn served. After the bite we headed out to a church just 2km away from the village that had insane views the night sky something that was expected by a village located at a an altitude of 1250m. 

We awoke at around 6:30, showered dressed and got some breakfast before the hike; we left the village at 7:40 and reached the trail-head at 8:40 after 40 mins of driving up to the 'Stani' trail-head (1890m).

We go our packs ready, filled with food and water and walked up through the trail...

The first section was the 1 hour section from the 'Stani' t.h. to dragon lake (drakolimnh) at 2150m. This section was 3.3km long and quickly finished in about 1 hour, reaching the beautiful lake. Here are some photos:

After reaching the lake we stopped for a small 12 min. break to enjoy some of our snacks and drink some water. The next section was going to be a hard one. The time was ample to explore the lake, find and examine (by looking) some Tritons and take plenty of photos; we finally began the final section.

The final section is almost 2 hours long with breaks and some well, not so pleasant incidents. It begins by the side of the lake and follows a mellow trail until it reaches the slope of the peak, from then on it has plenty of switchbacks all the way up to the initial point of a a large (dry now) river. 

Many sections are exposed traverse over corroded soil and rock making it a not so 'beginner' climb, although these sections make up a minimal amount of the total trail, that is almost entirely safe easy.

Due to the relative steepness of the section we agreed on doing 5 min beaks per 30 mins, a far cry from the usual 10 min breaks per 1 hour. The first break was under a black oak on the first quite tiresome switchbacks, with pristine views of Grammos mountain to the north, and Timfi to the south.

The next break after a few traverses above the large riverbed/gorge that had been created was an unexpected incident of my brother feeling unwell at approx 2300m; he stated that he felt nausea and was generally unwell and could't continue. After some persuasion, water and a break we continued our marry way up the green lush fields of the west face slowly approaching the summit. 

The last break was at the open field that was between us and the summit; we found shelter from the now raging sun under some rocks and drank water and ate snacks before we made our way up the summit, and the worst part of the climb. From the turn that traverses south of a large exposure outcrop at around 2400m the trail becomes rocky and steep. Filled with switchbacks, bad rocks underfoot and the heat of the sun it wasn't the most pleasent 100m to the summit but were well deserved as this even though the second highest peak in Greece was a walk in the park.