This is a post about a hiking trip in Mount Dirfys on Evia Island in Greece. If you are looking for information and inspiration for planning out your hiking adventures throughout Greece, check out this resources page.
Early morning in Chalkida city. The streets had just started becoming busier but they were still quiet. The fierce summer sun had just started heating the place up badly but it was still cool. I and two friends had just got pastry and coffee from the bakery and were driving up to the mountains.
The aim was the roof of Euboea Island, the top of Mount Dirfys which is known as Delphi. The route we’d follow up was the one running along its north ridge. We drove along the line of Artaki town, Katheni and Agios Athanasios villages, and then up the road leading to Glyfada village to the east of the mountain. Just after the road reaches its highest point and passes over behind the mountain, there is a small road leaving off a sharp left curve of the main road. It shortly leads to the mountain’s north refuge (38.6370-23.8141) at about 900 meters of altitude. That’s where we parked and started going up.
We moved straight up the slope to the east towards the main ridge of the mountain, by the left side of a scree we see there. Our timing with the sun was just perfect. It patiently remained hidden behind the ridge for exactly as long as we needed to get up this first, steep and windless part of the ascent. The island was streamed with light in its entirety upon the very moment we were stepping on the ridge. All the vigorous east wind of the vast Aegean Sea blew then against us, neutralizing the burning effect of the sun which was now nearing apex.
We continued straight to the summit along the ridge to the southeast. We were striding along the spine of the island. The views to the east and west were captivating. Haughty peaks, forests, plains, villages, cities, the open sea fainting to white by the intense brilliance… all was beneath… all but the sun, sky, and summit which we were steadily approaching.
Some two hours and a half after we started our hike, we’d made it to the triangulation pillar noting the top of Euboea. We encountered there a small group of people from Chalkida who had ascended from the other side. We talked a little. They soon left down their side. And we later left down ours the same way we’d come up. Reaching back to the car by late noon, we’d just spent a really nice morning up the mountains. The heat now was brutal. The air molecules felt like a mass of microscopic flames. It was time to head down to some gorgeous beach or another and spend there a nice afternoon.
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