On the Mountain of the Gods

After striking out on his first attempt, the author returns to Mt. Olympus determined to make the summit.

- CHRIS KAMBERIS

I felt incredibly grateful—and lucky—to have shelter when Cyclone Ianos arrived unexpectedly with the dawn on my third day in the mountains of Greece, effectively pinning down everyone in the hut until it blew itself out twenty hours later. Outside the water-stained windows of Giosos Apostolidis, the highest mountain shelter in Greece, a thick gray haze obscured the cliff-hung views of Stefani, Mt. Olympus's third-highest peak. The only choice was to sit by the old stove in the company of a few fellow adventurers and exchange mountain stories over tsipouro shots for what felt like an eternity. At least I had a successful summit story to tell.

Olympus, the tallest peak in Greece at 9,570 feet, is better known for its mythological status than the magnificent limestone cliffs and mountain-ringed meadows that cover its slopes. Some people even think the massif is imaginary. But the realm of the gods is a very real mountain located in central Greece, just north of the fertile Thessalian plain and a hairsbreadth from the Aegean Sea. With 52 separate peaks and covering nearly 200 square miles, the mountain is almost a range in itself.