Olympos

Greek Mountaineering Club (EOS) of Litochoron and the rescue team.

The ascent from the eastern side, the most important point of view beauty and variety of views, starts from Litochoron

Litochoron is a contemporary small town, situated at the foot of the moutnain, 5 km from the sea. It lies on the road axis Athens - Thessaloniki (the distances being 425 and 90 km).

Litochoron offers hotels, restaurants, seaside camping, banks, Health center, athletics center, tourism office for every information needed.

Litochoro is the basis of the Greek Mountaineering Club, member of the Greek Federation of Mountaineering and Climbing, offering info and whatever is needed for the ascent to Olympus, such as guides or animals, for those who wish to use animals for their ascent. In Litochoro is also based one of the few organized rescue teams in Greece.

Hiking from Litochoron

Starting from Litochoron, one has many hiking options, that vary inasmuch in beauty as in difficulty. We can propose the following hiking paths:

Agiannis - Trochalo Agianni
An easy hike of approx. 1 hour, in a dense forrest towards the church of Agiannis, where a hostel and a restaurant wait for you. In one more hour one arrives at the peak Trochalo Agianni, where the view of Pieria and the high peaks is magnificent.
Golna - Kastana
One hour walk to the peak of Golna, which rises steeply from the last houses of the village. Folllowing the ascent, an easy descent of approx. one hour to the spring of Kastana; the return can be also effected through the long distance path E4.
Stavros - Mana - Seloma
Either hiking for an hour from Litochoro, or driving by car for 10 km one can reach the refuge D. Boudolas in Stavros and then the spring of Mana. Then one can go on to Seloma, a characteristic plateau.
Enippeas Gorge - Vythos
A walk in the impressive entrance of the Gorge, a few km out of the village of Litochoron. One arrives there by car or hiking for a short time the picturesque village.

Climbing in Olympus.

Olympus today consists one of the most important climbing sites in Greece, offering some of the highest and most difficult slopes.

In the area around Litochorο there are some organised pistes-rocks, as well as a built climbing piste. The closest climbing site is the one in Zlinia, just over the village. Here one finds a big variety of paths, varying in difficulty form IV to VIII, such as "Fifth time", "Classical", "Moment of truth", "Cut of the eagles", "Goodbuy friend", "Pendulum", "Overtime", etc Still higher, in the area of the central peaks, there are many rocks, offered fro summertime climbing. Stefani, Mytikas and Skolio are some of these peaks, where the already traced paths include "Pear", "Eye", "Chechs", "Zerf Plate", "Nastos-Kinatidis", "Mihailidis-Xanthopoulos", "Huhn".

The first climbing attempts in Greece were effected in the climbing sites of the high peaks in Olympus. The pioneers were the Italians: E. Comici - A. Eche, the Chechs: Liporsek - Pipan, but also the Germans: Huhn. Then new openings were attempted by the Greek pioneers: K. Natsis, G. Mihailidis, G. Xanthopoulos, K, Zolotas, and those paths were "mythical" for many years, and have been repeated very few times. Of course, following the important evolution of mountaineering in Greece, οclimbing paths in the central peaks of Olympus increased, so today one has a good variety to choose from.