The Mountain That Tricked Me

There we are, with a plan to climb this now scary mountain and a plan that well was developed in two maybe three days we woke up at the casual 6am and we rushed to get to the mountain so we could get back home just after lunch, we drove two hours all the way to the trailhead. The drive just after the beautiful village of steni dirfis became an amazing tour of the lush green forest and with a sick view of the massive mountain of dirfi. 

We drove to the trailhead through a bad road but hell that mountain was worth it.

There is was under the huge face of dirfis looking up to the mountain with a great view of the headwall, the weather was great and we were ready to scale the mountain.

We were there up on our feet neckbending all the way looking up to the summit, a scary aspect of the climb was the miscalculation of how difficult this would be... We started hiking slowly but surely pushing the first section of the hike looking through to the beauty of this mountain. We pushed surely for 45 minuites until we reached the first of the "portes", my hiking partner and mom was having a really bad headache and she couldn't walk, this was going to be a great day. I waited for 10 minutes for her to feel better so we could tackle the first scramble section together as the mural of the dead climber haunted my thoughts while we climbed that section. We continued with my partner to push tierd and reached the second scramble ("porta") as we climbed it my partner fell more ill luckily we were at the 1hour mark and we had a break, she felt better and we continued. 

We started hiking again this time a very rocky and steep section just before the ridge, we hiked and hiked without energy to push we wiated for the trail to falt out but we had enough will power to push to the summit. Reaching the last ridge section we were pumped loving the views and getting ready to summit we push very fast litteraly jumping from rock to rock looking towards the awe inspiring headwall and enjoying the now 270 degree views. 

We finaly reached the trail junction and saw the south and true summit as well as some foreign hikers returning.

We saw the hikers returning from the south summit and not knowing we headed directly there. I can't even describe how happy i felt to be looking towards the summit and also looking at the snowpatches whilst its almost summer and its like 12C out there and this mountain is rather short, i couldn't belive what i was seeing. We headed towards the south summit all happy and cheerd of our succses, until i looked to my left. I noticed the granite rectangular block that marks the true summit and sighed. I said that to my partner where she also sighed and said we should bail, we had no time pressure and we ate our food and decided to push.

There we were 'lost' but looking towards our goal, we skiped around the unmarked trail and bushwalked towards the true summit passing right next to the radio transmiter and met the normal trail that we used to finaly summit. After 3 hours of climbing we reached the summit looking towards 3 different 'seas' and views that made you feel small. We also were captivated by the beauty and size of some snowpathes that had more than 3m of depth something amazing for a mountain like this. Finaly we were lucky to find weather like this and to have the ability to climb up the mountain in a very 'chill' way and to experiance a mounatineering day like no other.

This is the 360o i shot at the summit you can get a very good view of everything:

 

We climbed with light packs and minimal gear, i would highly recommend using heavy trail boots rather than trail shoes as well as using gaiters since the area is very rocky. Do not underestimate this mountain it was a great climb and an unforgettable one be ready to get wasted from climbing and be sure to bring food and water as its quite an inhospitable place where you can't find water and were you will be hungry very fast. This climb is way recommended and is surely the best climb in Greece i've had the pleasure of experiancing.