Kastro

Peaks: Skoutsio Korifi (1893m), Kastro (2218m*)
Area: Lefka Ori, Crete
The true 'mountain desert', the extraordinary landscape of the central Lefka Ori, is not easy to penetrate without a bivouac. I'd gazed into it from the summit of Melindaou, but wanted to get amongst it somehow. Looming high above our stone house in the foothill village of Vafes was Kastro, at the eastern end of the Lefka Ori, and research suggested I might be able to sample the landscape by running up it from Askifou in Sfakia (although protected by rows of subsidiary ridges). I wanted to return to the heart of Sfakia anyway, having sampled it on our Saturday trip. Even within Greece as a whole (which has many regions like this) it has something of a reputation: never occupied by foreign powers, notorious for its vendettas, it struck me as a kind of European Afghanistan. I got up early and drove over the high pass into Sfakia, heading upwards from Askifou as far as I could get by car. Inevitably, the little road I'd been following deteriorated into a shepherd's track, and a tricky reversing manoeuvre was required before I could set off up the E4 - quite easy to find but steep at this point as it makes its way through pine woods and steep hillsides to gain pastures higher up. This is Niato, another extraordinary high hidden plateau, so wonderful and characteristically Cretan. It is complex, with the initial meadows (called Tavri, perhaps) just a foretaste: jogging along a track, I then penetrated the true Niato, hidden behind lumpy hills. It is a stunning place, a remote, circular plateau - all greens and oranges in the early morning sunshine, the characteristic brilliance of the Cretan light setting it off, with the Kastro range dazzling white beyond. The route ahead was unclear. I stayed on the main track taken by the E4 until I became a little uneasy, seeing no sign whatsoever of a route up Kastro. This was not altogether surprising, as not many people come this way (although Kastro is relatively accessible by the standards of the Lefka Ori). Still, I didn't really want to push upwards through the maquis and rocks without some idea of the wider landscape, the bigger picture. After a while, I decided I had no choice, so reversed to the obvious valley coming down from the highest ridge, and picked my way up goat tracks with the intention of getting out of the maquis and on to the limestone as soon as was feasible. This worked to an extent, and I soon started scrambling up rough, but gently angled limestone on the right-hand side of the valley. It was windless and baking hot, as the sun began to climb. The northerly wind and lack of humidity that had been such a help to me a week ago was now gone, replaced by the fully cranked-up oven; and this was almost the definition of an unforgiving landscape. It feels exposed, malevolent, like a mirror/reverse-image of the vulnerable feeling you often get when the weather is really bad in the British hills or the Alps. I had 1.7 litres of water with me, and had no intention of hanging around, so ploughed upwards. The other issue was that it was not entirely clear where I was: as I rose, I looked left towards what I later realised was Skoutsio Kourifi, an obscure but shapely peak, but at the time felt that it must be Kastro. As it happened, I was actually on Kastro! It was just that I couldn't see the big picture, given the nature of the topography and the lack of map. Gradually, the penny dropped, as I emerged from the initial very steep rise and hellish scree to gain a shoulder with views out over Vafes and the north coast (and a slight breeze). I was above the re-entrant that is key to the ascent, and traversed the top of this with some scrambling (some way below the true summit of Kastro, as I later discovered) to pick up a ridge which led, via a lumpy subpeak, to the climb up Skoutsio Kourifi. Most of this only became clear later, as I struggled with the topography, map-less. The important thing was that I was now in the extraordinary landscape of the White Mountain Desert. If not unique, it is certainly unusual. It reminded me of the Sinai or Wadi Rum, but in some ways was even more barren in the sense that it is devoid of life and water. Looking into the central part of the range does feel a little like I remember the remoter parts of Wadi Rum: quite serious, and no place for a leaky bottle. This was as far as I got, however, as I had promised to be back by midday. So I scampered to the summit of Skoutsio Kourifi, with its views of the Sfakian coast, then down awkward screes - completely pathless, no sign of humans - down towards a valley above Niato which looked feasible from above. This reading of the landscape was quite satisfying and, despite a few falls and punctured fingers (on the prickly vegetation) and swollen hands (one of the plants leads to some kind of allergic reaction), I got back to the level pasture of Niatto in reasonable time. From here, I ran flat out back to the car, still with a little water left.