Mount Olympus

• 1. Introduction

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  Mount Olympus rises almost 3,000 metres above the Aegean Sea, an isolated tower of rock only 18 kilometres from the town of Litochoro. Its highest point, a peak named Mytikas, reaches 2,917.727 metres, the highest in all of Greece. The name Mytikas means nose. Ancient Greeks did not see only a mountain here. They saw the home of the Twelve Olympian gods, a lofty mountaintop where Zeus and his kin were thought to dwell. Yet for all the worship aimed at this summit, no recorded human stood on Mytikas until the 2nd of August 1913. So what kept people off the highest peak in Greece for so long? Why did pilgrims leave letters in the dust expecting them to survive a year untouched? And how did a massif of 52 peaks become a refuge for rebels, a sanctuary for rare flowers, and the first National Park its country ever named?

• 2. Throne Of Zeus

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  Stefani is the peak Greeks also called Thronos Dios, the Throne of Zeus, and it climbs to 2,902 metres. Its final 200 metres rise so sharply that they present the greatest challenge for climbers on the whole massif. Over Litochoro, on the horizon, the relief of the mountain forms an apparent V between two peaks of almost equal height. The left limb of that V is Mytikas, also called Pantheon. The right is Stefani. Further south, Skolio reaches 2,911 metres and completes an arc of about 200 degrees. Its steep western slopes form a wall around a precipitous amphitheatrical cavity 700 metres deep and 1,000 metres in circumference, known as the Megala Kazania. On the eastern side, the slopes fold into parallel zones called the Zonaria, and narrower scorings called the Loukia lead up toward the peak. Olympus carries many smooth summits over 2,000 metres, among them Aghios Antonios at 2,815 metres and Profitis Ilias at 2,803 metres. On its north side, between Stefani and Profitis Ilias, the Muses' Plateau spreads out at 2,550 metres, a name that points back to nine daughters of Zeus.

• 3. Daughters Of Memory

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  In Pieria, at the northern foot of Olympus, tradition placed the nine Muses, patrons of the Fine Arts and daughters of Zeus and the Titaness Mnemosyne. The origin of the name Olympos itself is unknown. One theory compounds ou lyma and pous to mean pure foot, fitting Hesiod's image of the earth as a footstool for heaven from which the Blessed Gods rise. The scholar Robert S.P. Beekes argued instead that the word is pre-Greek and may have meant simply mountain. It also appears connected to a Mycenaean Greek word, u-ru-pi-ja-jo, most likely a term used to describe people. In Homer's Odyssey the variant Oulumpos appears as the seat of the gods, not yet tied to any single peak. Homer also seems to use the word as a plain synonym for ouranos, the sky. The mountain was once known as Mount Belus too, after a line in the Iliad calling the gods' seat a heavenly threshold. The name Olympus spread widely. Mountains called Olumpos stood in Mysia, Laconia, Lycia, Cyprus, Attica, Euboea, Ionia and Lesbos. The Thessalian Olympus, the highest in any Greek territory, became the Pan-Hellenic representative of the gods' home. By at least the 5th century BC, Herodotus identified Olympus as the peak in Thessaly.

• 4. Letters In The Dust

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  Plutarch, writing during the Roman Empire, reported that priests and pilgrims left writings and sacrificial ashes on the summits of Mount Kyllini and Mount Olympus. Years later, he said, these were found intact, neither washed away by rains nor scattered by winds. He took this as proof that the highest mountains on Earth stood above the clouds and the winds. Augustine of Hippo echoed the claim in the early Middle Ages. In On Genesis he wrote that on the peak of Mount Olympus certain letters are regularly made in the dust and a year later found whole and unmarred by those who climb for their solemn memorials. Archaeology supports the picture of long pilgrimage. Ancient Greek pottery, coins, and sacrificial ashes estimated to date from 400 BC have been found on the summit. The third highest peak, Agios Antonios at 2,817 metres, held a sanctuary of Zeus in antiquity, confirmed by finds discovered in 1961. The reverence reached into Christian centuries. The highest-elevation chapel in Orthodox Christianity sits on the summit of Profitis Ilias at 2,803 metres, built in the 16th century by Saint Dionysios of Olympus.

• 5. Refuge Of The Klephts

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  In the period of the Ottoman Empire, Olympus became a hiding place and base of operations for klephts and armatoloi. The second armatoliki was founded here, led by Kara Michalis in 1489. When klephts allied with the village of Milia, the Turks destroyed it in the late 17th century in retaliation. Livadi later became the seat of the armatoliki of Olympus and Western Macedonia, its first renowned commander Panos Zidros. In the 18th century the Turks replaced armatoloi, who often joined the klephts, with Muslim Albanian armatoloi who ravaged the Macedonian countryside. Even after capitulating to Ali Pasha, the armatoloi of Olympus never ceased fighting on land and at sea. Their ranks included Nikotsaras, Giorgakis Olympios, and the family of the Lazaioi. Liberation from the Ottoman Empire came in 1912, yet robbers stayed active, the best known being Giagoulas. During the German invasion in 1941 the Hellenic Army fought significant battles alongside units of New Zealanders and Australians. Through the German Occupation from 1941 to 1944 the mountain was a center of the Greek Resistance. The Greek Civil War, running from 1946 to 1949, began here, in Litochoro.

• 6. Reaching The Nose

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  On the 2nd of August 1913, just one year after northern Greece was freed from Ottoman rule, the summit of Olympus was finally reached. The Swiss Frédéric Boissonnas and Daniel Baud-Bovy made the climb aided by Christos Kakkalos, a hunter of wild goats from Litochoro. Kakkalos, who knew the mountain well, was the first of the three to climb Mytikas. He served as the official guide on Olympus until his death in 1976. Earlier attempts had ended badly. The German engineer Edward Richter tried for the summit in 1911 but was abducted by klephts, who also killed the Ottoman gendarmes escorting him. Other explorers had studied the massif before, among them the French archaeologist Leon Heuzey in 1855 and the German explorer Heinrich Barth in 1862. After the first ascent the record grew. In 1921 Kakkalos and Marcel Kurz reached Stefani, and in 1923 Kurz edited Le Mont Olympe, a book with the first detailed map of the summits. In 1928 the painter Vasilis Ithakisios climbed with Kakkalos to a cave he named the Shelter of the Muses, returning many summers to paint. Today the climb is a non-technical hike except for the final section from Skala to Mytikas, a YDS class 3 rock scramble that demands resistance to acrophobia.

• 7. Richest Slopes In Greece

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  The study of Olympus's plants began in 1836, when the French botanist Aucher-Eloy examined them. The National Park is now counted among the richest flora regions in Greece, holding about 1,700 species and subspecies, roughly 25 percent of all Greek flora. Of these, 187 are deemed significant, 56 are Greek endemic, and 23 are local endemic, found only on Olympus. Among the rarities is Ramonda heldreichii, a plant relict of the Ice Age that draws special interest from botanists. In 1980 the Swedish botanist Arne Strid wrote a major book on the plants and flowers, from the beach of the Aegean up to the upper regions. Vegetation climbs in four sequential zones, though the complex topography blurs any clean order. Maquis of evergreen broadleaf trees sits between 300 and 500 metres. Black pine dominates the eastern and northern flanks between 500 and 1,700 metres. Higher up, the rare Bosnian pine takes over above 1,000 metres and forms an almost unmixed forest over 1,400 metres, thinning toward 2,750 metres. That line is one of the highest forest tree limits in the Balkans and Europe. Above the trees lies alpine tundra with more than 150 plant species. The animal life is less studied but rich, with 32 mammal species recorded, 108 species of birds, 22 reptiles, and 8 amphibians. Lions once lived here, noted by Pausanias, and brown bears persisted at least until the 16th century.

• 8. The First National Park

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  In 1938 Olympus became the first region in Greece to receive specific protective rules, declared a National Park. The aim was the preservation in perpetuity of the natural environment of the region, its wild flora, fauna and natural landscape, along with its cultural values. Specific laws prohibit all forms of exploitation across about 4,000 hectares on the eastern side, the core of the Park. The protected area has since grown to 24,000 hectares, its lowest elevation at 600 metres and its peak at Mytikas, 2,917.727 metres. In 1981 UNESCO proclaimed Olympus a Biosphere Reserve, and it is registered in the Natura 2000 European Network. In June 2016 the Olympus National Park Information Center opened at Litochoro, where professional rangers help hikers and a guide leads group tours on the mountain. Over 10,000 people are estimated to visit each year, most reaching only the Skala and Skolio summits. The mountain even left its mark on currency. In 2005 Greece minted a commemorative coin showing the War of the Titans on Mount Olympus, with flowering branches on its lower part and the words National Park Olympus above the scene.