In search of shred adventure in austerity-struck Greece
This story originally appeared in The Reason 4.4 released in 2013
I blame Craig Kelly for this. I remembered reading stories about him riding in Greece from the old days, but I hadn’t heard anything since. I was keen to ride somewhere new and Greece seemed like it could be a good option. There are actually fifteen resorts in Greece, three times as many as Scotland, and combined with the fact that last winter in Europe was the best in decades, I booked my flights with confidence. I have to admit though, that after flying into a warm and sunny Athens airport, that confidence was dented a little...
The recent events in Greece overshadowed the preparations for this trip, with riots on the streets and increasingly desperate members of the publics wondering what would happen to their proud country. I'm a member of the 'everything will be OK' mindset when organising trips to sketchy locales, but I’ll admit the news reports and the lack of much snowboard coverage from Greece were a little worrying.
Our crew was four. Jack Shackleton is an old friend – an ex-team GB member, he's travelled the work and built up a solid riding style and impressive bag of tricks. No longer riding professionally, Jack works for a living, but was the first to answer the call. Next up was Tom 'Smithy' Smith, Sputnik shop worked an Hemel indoor slope local who has since been picked up to work for Burton snowboards. Tom Hunt was the third of our crew and is a quiet, yet solid rider and a call to Salomon team manager James Fuller got him on the team sheet the day after his birthday celebrations – which would partly explain his confused response to my early morning invitation call.
Before long we were driving out of Athens airport and in the general direction of Mount Parnassos, the first stop on our trip. My aging SatNav simply refused to believe that any of the places on our schedule existed, so a pit stop to pick up a map yielded results and showed that the route appeared to be relatively straightforward. At this point we made our first mistake – opting to take the minor roads to avoid motorway tolls. 'Three hours' the dude in the petrol station told us, but when we were still driving five hours later, we learned the first of the lessons that would become standard in Greece – take everything you're told, especially distances and times, with a pinch of salt.
We soon found that the further you get from Athens and the touristy areas, the less likely you are to find handy translations of place names from the hieroglyphs of classic Greek into something that is legible to tourist brains. We have 26 letters in our alphabet, the Greeks 24, none of which look like anything I'm familiar with. The place name 'Polydroso' – where we were staying – becomes 'Πολύδροσο', or as we called it 'upside down cup, o, inverted y, French u, messed-up Q, lots of o's' which hardly trips off the tongue as you're flying down windy mountain roads, trying to read battered road signs and out of your mind with travel fatigue. We were way out of comfort zone, and I loved it.
Most of the route went over mountains and hundreds of switchbacks, despite seeming pretty straight on our less than accurate map. Despite this, Smithy managed to sleep basically from the moment we pulled out of the airport until we arrived, waking up only to eat sweets and piss when the opportunity arose. Well jel.
Our first stop was at the Argyriou Winery, a family-owned and run vineyard that produces excellent wines from their 270 acres of vineyard, and despite the late hour of our arrival, the family, including daughter Despina who would look after us during the stay, had stayed up to wait for us and plied us with some of their amazing wine as a way to ease our tired and road-weary bones. We were shown our rooms, which despite the supposed 'simplicity' of accommodations, were brilliant and a welcome respite from the travel...
'ALLLLLALLLHGHGHGHGAGHGGGHGGHHGOOOOOOLOLOLHOOO!' Ripped from my slumber by a cacophony of noise that sounded as though someone was shouting through a vase right next to my head, I was confused and more than a little annoyed. ALLLLLALLLHGHGHGHGAGHGGGHGGHHGOOOOOOLOLOLHOOO!' What the fuck was that? It was 7am so, curious, I went in search of the source of the noise. 'Gipsys' Despina shrugged when I asked her what could be ruining the peace 'They have a mobile shop and that's how they get their customers'.
The morning revealed the winery to be beautiful building in a outstanding location – nestled in the foothills and with an outside terrace for breakfasting and general hanging out. We got stuck into a traditional Greek breakfast of cheese, meats, fruit, bread, honey and yoghurt washed done with hot, strong coffee and soon felt ready to take on anything. Ski areas in Greece don't have accommodation at the snow level, so it's a case of driving up every morning and so we soon wound our way up the access road, taking in the site of incredible forests and little mountain cafe's that were boarded up for the winter. Not really knowing where we were going and definitely not trusting the map, we basically kept on driving and winding our way thought the wooded switchbacks, before we go above the tree line and could see the ski area. There IS snow in Greece!
Finally, we got on the lift – an ancient gondola which had either been there since the 60's, or bought from a French ski resort in the 80's when they we're upgrading their old one. It was awesome, like a series of eggs attached to a cable. At first glance, the terrain seemed a little like Scotland, but higher – quite a few wide open pistes well above the tree line and we got to grips just shredding around. It was fun, but a little limited and there didn't seem to be too many other snowboarders around – I knew we need some local knowledge. Before we left I'd got in touch with 21 Kifissia who are Greece's premier snowboard shop and also the Greek distributors of some of the best brands in the sport – Rome, Capita, Union, Coal. They hooked me up with the number of Spiros Bellonias, one of their riders and the guy who could show us around. We gave him a call and he said he was riding the trees and would see us tomorrow. Trees? From where I was standing I couldn’t even see any trees, so we had obviously made the right call...
We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we were on a mission to get some food. Looking at the map, we saw that Delphi was pretty close by, so we headed off that way. Delphi is one of the most important architectural sites in Greece, which has been occupied for thousands of years. It celebrates the god Apollo and was the site where the Oracle of Delphi would make her predictions. As it's fame grew, a complex of incredible buildings were constructed around the site and it also became the site for one of the four yearly Panhellenic games, precursors of the modern Olympics. The site lay undiscovered until 1893 when a team of French Archaeologists uncovered it and it was found that most of the surviving stonework was built in the 6th century BC – more than two and a half THOUSAND years ago... It's a jaw-droppingly impressive site and a must go if you visit Greece. What’s more impressive was the number of cats around the place. Hundreds of them, feral little bastards, just running around, lazing in the sun or hiding from tourists who were trying to take their photo.
After we had visited the ruins, we found a Souvlaki shop so headed in for a local speciality and sitting chomping on meats, bread and salad and drinking a local Mythos beer, we decided that life is pretty good... Food and beer came to €5 – try doing that in France... On leaving the shop, the owner demanded that we all drink shots with him. I tried to point out that I had to drive and he just said 'Well, I have to work, so have a drink!' You can’t really argue with that logic.
The next morning we had arranged to meet Spiros in the car park. It’s weird when you’re meeting someone you don’t know and have no idea what they look like. How will you know them? How would they know you? As the car park filled up, there was no obvious signs... Until a matt black Subaru 4x4 came tear arsing in, did a couple of donuts and parked up, music blaring. The car door opened – ‘Spiros?’ I ventured. A huge grin and a laugh answered in the affirmative and as his friends piled out and met up, I knew we’d be in for a good day.
Completely ignoring the pistes we had ridden the day before, Spiros soon took us up a ricketty old draglift that pulled us balls-first up a steep slope at about 100mph. At the top we were dumped out at a couloir with a ‘closed’ sign. Ducking the ropes, Spiros dropped in and shredded – a short but sweet super steep section unlike anything else we’d see on the mountain. As the couloir bowled out, we rode further down to the tree line and as the cat track wound it’s way lazily down the mountain Spiros just kept dropping off the sides with a shout and a whoop. We had definitely found our guide. At the top of the next lift was the remnants of what was once a 5m tall quarterpipe which had been built for a Red Bull competition a couple of weeks before and was slowly falling apart. It had lost at least half it’s size and most of it’s shape, but that didn’t stop Jack pulling a killer handplant and Spiros busting out a nice McTwist.
Next up we went back to the peak of the mountain and then dropped off the back again ‘Did you ever see the Transworld story with Craig Kelly?’ he shouted over the wind ‘This is the run that they did. It’s called Craig Kelly’. As we dropped in, I could see why Craig had picked this run – wide open, with a cornice running across the top and the option of REALLY cranking it, perfect for powder sprays and Kelly turns. As we got towards the bottom, Spiros and his boys stopped and unbuckled before disappearing behind a rock, beckoning for us to follow. As we got round the corner the rock opened into a large cave, complete with places to sit, chill and smoke – a real local knowledge spot.
As we came back to the base area, the end of the day was coming up fast – Spiros saw one of the pisteurs that he knew and minute later, everyone was on the back of a snowcat going up for one last run which would go through the trees and down to the below the resort. We were beyond stoked. What on the first day had seemed like a fun, but limited spot had turned – with local knowledge – into an extensive shred paradise.
We decided we needed to get tattoos to celebrate our trip and Spiros knew a person who could hook us up. Entering a smoke filled seasonaire house, my alarm bells should really have been clanging like the Titanic’s, especially when the tattooist didn’t have any tattoos herself and the studio was in her kitchen... We decided in advance to get ‘The Reason’ written in Greek (and taking precautions by asking two separate people to write out what it should look like, which would hopefully prevent us getting tattooed with ‘Dog Fucker’ or ‘Stupid Tourist’). Once everyone was finished, we came to pay and she said ‘100 Euros’. Fair enough, I thought, it only took 15 minutes and there were four of us... ‘Each’... came the knockout blow. Ouch. Having totally forgotten the first rule of conducting cash transactions abroad – agree a price first – we were stuck paying €400 for work that would have been a bad idea if we were 15... Still, you got to laugh, eh?
With our tattoos beginning to heal and our pockets considerably lighter, it was with mixed emotions that we left Mt Parnassos. The friendship shown to us Spiros and Despina was amazing and we were stoked to have met them – but it was time to head on towards Kalavrita, located on the southern part of mainland Greece and about a four hour drive away. Back on the coastal roads and as we drove the weather just got warmer until we crossed the Aegean onto the southern island. The signs of investment are all around in Greece – the huge bridge that spans the gap between northern and southern part of mainland Greece at Patra, the motorway that is being built and running from Patra all the way back to Athens. Greece is changing, but the austerity being imposed up on it threatens to undo all the progress.
We wound up the valley from Diakopto, bypassing the monastery at Mega Spileo that is built straight into the rock like something out of Lord of the Rings. Past endless groves of olive trees and lemon trees and as we climbed the temperature dropped – what was a sunny day when we left the sea had become cold and dumping by the time we reached the town.
Kalavrita is a town, not a ski area – and it’s a town with a past. During WW2 there was a massacre when all the men and boys over the age of 12 were executed by the occupying forces for supporting the Greek Resistance who lived in the mountains above the town. More than 500 died, the town was burned to the ground and Germans haven’t exactly been popular here since and the recent austerity is only making things worse. Jack and I went for a beer and got a decidedly chilly reception from the bar lady, stony faced, who asked where we were from. When we said England, her face lit up and she was all smiles. She looked at Jack’s blond hair and said under her breath to me ‘I thought he was German’. The wounds in Kalavrita are still raw.
The next morning we drove up the mountain. Twice. Smithy – the doughnut – realised as we were booting up in the car park that he’d left his down the mountain, so back we went. We were finally ready to ride around midday and was cold. And snowing. Snowing so hard that we had to huddle on the lifts to stay warm and the visibility was so bad that even though there was tons of fresh and powder turns to be had, we couldn’t see anything and spent as much time picking ourselves up from slams as we did actually making turns – still we had a blast. Kalavrita is a smaller area than Parnassos, but much of it is at the limits of tree level, so you get the visibility when the weather turns bad. Much of what can be ridden is accessible of just two lifts and even though the top one was shut due to the weather there was plenty of terrain to ride. But, damn, it was cold and as the snow got heavier and the wind more biting we called it a day early to head back to town for another Souvlaki and a couple of beers before a reasonably early night, hoping to get a shred in the next morning before we had to leave.
Opening the curtains at 0800, the weather looked exactly the same as yesterday at town level – overcast and raining, which should mean more snow up top. I took a look at the snowcam.gr website and it was showing blue skies up above, the complete opposite to what we could see out our window. With just two hours before we had to leave, we had to think fast – should we drive the half an hour up the hill to chance our arms and see whether the website was telling us truths, or fuck it off and head back to Athens? None of us had had much time on snow so far that winter, so the decision was a simple one and up the hill we went. To start with, things weren't looking good. Visibility was down a few metres and as we climbed it looked as though the snow was getting thicker, not lighter. A few hundred metres from the top though, the clouds lightened, then lifted entirely – to reveal a perfect blue sky and about two feet of fresh snow. It was one of those days that you dream of and it was right there in front of us, so we wasted no time getting up the top. The upper part of the mountain was still closed, but the locals in the know were milling about the lift, as if if they knew it would open soon. We didn’t have much time, so we opted to ride the same part of the mountain that we had the day before, but this time we could see what we were doing – and what a sight! The pistes were immaculately groomed and it seemed like most of the visitors were only interested in that – there were deep pow stashes right off the main piste which just needed a little ollie off the hardpack and into the pow before we were making bottomless turns. Back at the bottom, we had time for one more run before heading out and as we got to the upper mountain lift, it opened with a stampede of locals. This really put us in a bind. The top part looked amazing, but the lift line was at least twenty minutes long... For once, discretion proved to be the better part of valour and we withdrew to ride the lower section again, this time finding a little rock band to shred. A bit gutted, but knowing that we had made the right decision, we packed up the car and headed back down the mountain. If only we’d had another couple of days... But then, that gives us the perfect excuse to come back to Greece – unfinished business.
The temperature change from Kalavrita back to sea level was unbelievable and by the time we were zipping along the new coastal motorway we were in T shirts with the windows open, racing against time to get back to the airport. Athens came into view like the huge, sprawling city that it is and it was strange after a week of little villages and mountain passes.
The light at the airport was simply incredible – like nothing I’ve ever seen before – and we relaxed in the warm evening sun, waiting for our flight and considering what had become a trip of a lifetime.
The old Greece is being pushed out by the new, which is bringing both good and bad things, but there is no doubt that Greece is one of the best places I’ve ever been to. Quite apart from the adventure of the place, the people are amazingly hospitable, the scenery is incredible, it’s inexpensive and fun as hell. And the shredding is awesome. Riding anywhere new is special, but Greece was more special than most.
Amazing winery and guest house in the foothills of Mt Parnassos. Wide variety of wines and the guesthouse is built in the old barn behind the main property. Small, intimate and in a stunning location with amazing people and great prices.
Mt Parnassos is Greece’s biggest and best known ski area and the closest one to Athens and as a result it’s one of the most popular in the country. With lift tickets at around €25, it’s cheap by European standards and a lot of fun.
Around 250kn form Athens, Kalavrita is smaller than Parnassos, but no less fun. Really well organised and with some killer terrain, it snows a lot here and when it does it can bring some of the best days ever. Lift tickets are cheap and the people are friendly.
A small and charming stone built hotel in the main part of Kalavrita. Simple, comfortable rooms and a killer breakfast and at price that you won’t believe. Seriously, the deals here are amazing...
The two Tom’s stayed at Chalet Azanias, which are just outside the main part of town and on the way up to the ski area. Newly built, self-catered chalet apartments, they’re ideal for couples or pairs and offer seclusion and peace while being within walking distance of the town
Snowcam features live, up to the minute shot from snow cams at all of Greece’s ski areas. Check it out, cos it looks as lots of the resorts in Greece have tons of snow already...
Greece’s number one snowboard shop and distributor, these guys live snowboarding and skateboarding. You need to check it out if you’re in Athens.