Kalogeros

Peaks: Kalogeros (2092m)

Area: Pindos, Greece

Although not far from the motorway, which you can actually see at times, this wild cirque of peaks is about as untravelled as it gets in Europe. I could find no information about it, although the dominant mountain in the cirque might be called Lakmos. It just seemed irresistible to get among them, even though I couldn't find any information, so I took the tortuous road to the tiny remote village of Antochori, itself a long drive from Metsovo (although again not far from the motorway, weirdly). A multi-day marked trail called the Epirus trail is in development, so I tried using this initially. In development in this case means no trace of a path! After much thrashing through vegetation, I was burning too many energy matches - exhausting progress, thigh-deep. So I gave up and tried a shepherd's rubble track instead. After a few hundred metres I spied a shallow scree gully which seemed to lead directly upwards to the start of the ridge, so I took it. My instinct was more or less correct: it steepened after 500m or so and became quite hard work, but I persisted and my assumption that the vegetation would diminish was correct. Lots of calling quail below the ridge, which I eventually gained. It was broad but finally gave me an overview. I could see the whole cirque as well as peaks further east. Assuming Lakmos is the main summit, it looked almost Alpine, and I would estimate at least two days for the full traverse, with the possibility of some technical bits. The ridge had a tiny semblance of a path in places and led to the first summit, a huge whaleback when viewed from Metsovo across the valley. It had a cairn, and I transcribed it from Greek as Kalogeros. I think this is 'monk' if my alphabet transcribing is correct! It was a cloudy day, but they didn't really look threatening and I was pleased with the cool weather. I had a yen to continue a little over the ridge but as I descended to the deep col between Kalogeros and the next peak, I saw a distant sheepfold and almost immediately heard dogs barking! There was no way I was going to pass them in the narrow col, so I took it as a sign and contoured the hill away from their sight (I was wearing a red race t-shirt so was very visible!). This worked, and the barking stopped. But it meant a completely trackless and very steep, rocky descent down to a shepherd track. When I reached it I had a rest and a drink before taking various tracks all the way down to the village. Actually, not all the way down as a shepherdess (about the same age as me) stopped to give me a lift in her ancient pick-up, whether I wanted one or not! A lovely gesture, and actually a nice way to save energy as the sun came out and it got predictably hot. An unusual day, very rewarding in a lot of ways, and I would have taken any summit at the start of the day. Potentially a tremendous area for mild exploratory mountaineering.