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Crete White Mountains. October 15: Mt. Gingilos (or Gigilos)
The Mt. Giglios hike. We made it about half way.
Stats for the Giglios hike.
Walking high above Samaria Gorge.
Neos Omalos Hotel runs morning shuttles to the Samaria Gorge trailhead, which is also the Mt. Gigilos trailhead. You sign your name on the list for the shuttle you want the day before, and then after breakfast, you hop on the van for the ten-minute ride. The gorge was closed today, so the van was fairly empty.
As we drove past sheep fields, Chris observed that many of the sheep had red paint on their backs. This is a technique shepherds use to identify which ewes have been… uh… serviced. The shepherd paints the ram’s chest or outfits him with a dye bag that hangs down his sternum. When the ram visits a ewe, he leaves his mark behind. Red ram was clearly an energetic fellow….
Mt. Gigilos is situated just above Samaria Gorge. Its summit is 1980 meters, and reportedly offers a view of both the Aegean and the Libyan Seas, as well as a birds-eye view of the Samaria Gorge. It’s allegedly the most accessible summit in Crete, requiring no more than “a little scrambling” and no actual mountaineering equip.m.ent or skills.
Mt. Gigilos.
However. Mountain walks can be rough, especially once you get above the tree line into the grey scree-field domain. The higher you go up a mountain, the steeper the walking surface tends to get. I do not do well with edges, and steep ascents terrify me. I hate walking on scree.
It seems to be genetic. My brother and sister were even more scared than I was at Macchu Picchu in Peru.
Photos of Mt. Gigilos resemble some of the scarier Alpine passes we’ve crossed.
The Sefinafurgge, on the Via Alpina in Switzerland. Steep up, steep down, loose scree, and so very high! I momentarily considered staying there forever just so I wouldn’t have to face climbing back down.
I’d spent much of the previous afternoon doom-scrolling blogs describing the climb up Gigilos, and had mentally prepared myself to be scared out of my wits. Comments like this didn’t help: “Danger! After the saddle towards peak there is a very deep and dangerous chasm (precipice). Lot of people died there as they didn’t see the dark hole of the chasm.”
But! It was our hike, and fortunately it’s an out-and-back. We could turn around whenever.
Maybe that wasn’t the best mindset for achieving the summit, but on the other hand, we never set out to climb mountains!
The café at the Samaria Gorge trailhead was closed for the low season, or perhaps because the gorge was closed. So we just started climbing.
Samaria Gorge is a no-drone zone.
The trail up Gigilos is part of the extensive E4 coastal trail.
From the outset, the trail was rocky—probably the rockiest terrain we’d ever encountered, with the possible exception of some interminable boulder fields in the Alps.
Rocks everywhere.
So pleasant underfoot!
The view was spectacular, no denying that. We could see the Omalos plateau and down into the Samaria Gorge. We even saw a couple of lammergeiers, or maybe one lammergeier twice.
Omalos plateau
Up above Samaria Gorge
As we got higher, the trail started to feel more exposed. The footing did not get easier.
Starting to feel it….
When we got to the famous arch, I’d had enough.
The arch
The trail through the arch was steep and narrow and loose, there was an edge to the left, and the reward for traversing that section was a scree field and some steep switchbacks. After which things would get really hairy!
Also, every step that we walked up we would have to walk down.
Chris did a little scouting and agreed that this trail would not be to my liking.
We wanted time to fly the drone anyway.
Mt. Gigilos is not a no-drone zone!
On the side of the mountai, near the famous arch.
As predicted, the walk down was just as tricky as the walk up. We picked our way down, getting back to the parking lot around 1:00. One of the girls from the hotel came and collected us.
Back down we go!
Waiting for our pickup. There are lots of sheep in Omalos!
We spent the rest of the day kicking around Omalos and relaxing, which wasn’t terrible.
Especially because tomorrow the Samaria Gorge would be open!