Biting the world heritage berry

A muted cheer for UNESCO's inscription of the highest Greek mountain.

On the way up to the hut on Mt Olympus, there used to grow a spiky shrub festooned with glossy black berries. In case anybody was tempted to try one, a sign warned them off in perfect English: caution, poisonous plant, don’t eat.

Two decades after encountering this deceitful shrub, I’m wondering if our Greek hosts haven’t just indulged in an enticingly lubricious fruit of a different kind. Last week, Mt. Olympus was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, alongside the D-Day landing beaches and the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara.

In the case of Olympus, designated as a mixed world heritage site in recognition of its cultural and natural significance, the news was met in Greece with “near euphoria”, according to the Guardian.

In a previous article, the same newspaper quotes Dimitris Pappas, an official of the Olympus national park management agency, as saying “There’s no doubt that if the area is declared a UNESCO world heritage site it will help contribute to the mountain’s protection.”

Back in 2003, the mountain seemed to be looking after itself quite well. The path from the plateau where I left my rented car led off through shady woods. By the time that we emerged from the trees, afternoon clouds had veiled the sun.

It was cool at 2,060 metres, where the Spilios Agapitos Refuge stands in its grove of pine trees. A mule was parked placidly outside, waiting for somebody to remove its paniers. I stepped around it and into the hut.

Patrons are these days advised to book their stay here “months in advance”. As the local town mayor quoted in the Guardian says, “Olympus’s carrying capacity has reached its limit.” Last year, half a million people visited the mountain. And that was without the added amphetamine shove of a UNESCO inscription.

Because the refuge stands higher than many an alpine hut, the atmosphere within was relaxed. As the summit rises only eight hundred vertical metres above, there would be no need for an alpine start, so no call to fossick around with headtorches while fumbling for the path in the dark.

Instead, we stepped out of the door after a leisurely breakfast of buttered bread with honey washed down with black coffee. Nobody charged us a peak fee, or made us fill in forms, or demanded evidence of a rescue bond, or checked our footwear (although I’m moderately confident that my old but trusty Zamberlans would have ticked that box). Nor did they insist that we bring rain pants as well as a jacket.

For a couple of hours, we walked up a winding and well-marked path, crunching over limestone splinters, and so out onto the hogsback of Skala (2,882 metres). 

Candidates for the main summit of Mytikas (2,918 metres) must then leave the hiking path and step onto the bare rocky floor of a stone couloir that looks as if some ancient cirque glacier might have scooped it out.

Yet route-finding remained straightforward, thanks to the sequence of red paint dots marking the way. No cables or chains defaced the rock, nor was there any need for them – the rock strata here helpfully form natural steps, so that the scrambling was easier than the angle of the couloir’s backwall might suggest.

Except for the red dots, indeed, the mountain seemed to be much as Frédéric Boissonnas and Daniel Baud-Bovy found it in August 1913, when they made the peak’s first modern ascent guided by Christos Kakkalos. The two Swiss alpinists must have felt at home here – in form, geology and height, Olympus resembles a typical “Kalkberg” of the Helvetic Alps. 

After the Great War, Kakkalos went on to accompany Marcel Kurz of Zurich's Academic Alpine Club to the massif’s second highest summit. By a curious coincidence, Kurz was the only Swiss alpinist to be mentioned in Japan’s most famous mountain book. A tireless monographer, he later published Le Mont Olympe, a book that includes the first detailed map of the summits.

You could assemble a platoon or two of hikers atop Mytikas. But the summit rocks were a relaxed place in September 2003. The handful of visitors may or may not have forgotten themselves so far as to shake hands. But nobody was taking selfies. After all, we would have had to wait seven years before uploading them onto Instagram.

Now we were now cut off from the lower world. A sea of cloud, or more likely morning mist, had swirled up and over the lower peaks. On my way down, a gust of wind took my favourite baseball cap and flung it into a gully, a small votive offering to Zeus and his crew. That couldn’t happen today, of course – helmets are more or less de rigueur while climbing in the couloir, no doubt for good reason.

In fact, they might one day soon be compulsory, depending on how deeply the Mt Olympus park authorities bite into the world heritage berry. If this happens, remember you read it here first.