How to get here
The main base for getting to know Olympus is the city of Litochoro, on the eastern slopes of the massif. Litochoro is located 80 km south of Thessaloniki, 5 km from the coast. You can also start from Kokinopilos on the west side of Olympus or from Petra on the north.
Weather
Olympus is in the Mediterranean climate zone, but its altitude is almost 3000 m. Τhe average temperature is −5 °C in winter and 10 °C in summer. As in any mountains, the weather can change quickly, and in practice the temperature on the summit is often 15 degrees lower than in Litochoro. In the summer there are violent thunderstorms. In winter, there is often snow above 1500 m, and it stays on the tops for several months.
Water
An amazing amount of rain falls on Olympus (1500 mm per year), but apart from the Enipeas River and several other rivers in the lower locations, you cannot count on any streams or sources of water high in the mountains, especially in summer. Remember, take enough water with you.
Routes
Olipian paths are very diverse. Some of them are soft and very comfortable in the forest floor, above are mostly rocky routes.
The routes proposed on this website are often very hard to see, and in many cases they have no visible path, you have to run the best route according to the gpx track presented here, and above all according to your own judgment. Remember that gpx devices have errors and you can’t rely on them completely.
The scale of difficulty of the routes
We use our own route difficulty scale, which has nothing to do with the difficulty scale of climbing routes. The scale has 10 possible positions from 1/10 to 10/10. Difficulty 10/10 means that this is the most difficult route on Olympus. Everything, of course, according to our assessment. We take into account primarily two factors: technical difficulty (type of ground, slope gradient) and the degree of visibility of the path. The difficulty of 10/10 means that the path is very rocky (sometimes the stones are larger than a man), very steep and invisible, or almost invisible. In all cases, however, these are routes for hikers, not for climbers. To pass them you don’t need climbing equipment (harnesses, ropes, carabiners, etc.).
Gpx devices and gpx files
The data on route length and elevation gain on this website are derived from our own GPS devices (Garmin Fenix 3, Garmin GPSMAP 64s, Garmin Oregon 600, Garmin Fenix 5), to which we have limited confidence. You should always take into account the error rate of 10%, especially since it is not known how the data from this side (and www.komoot.com) will be interpreted by your device.
We are fully aware that the gpx files presented here have obvious errors. One of the routes runs through the summit of Mount Olympus, which height is exactly known – 2918 m, and in our file this height is only 2860m.
Use these files wisely.
