Checking The Pelion Península after two heavy storms

Hi! I'm Anke, from the S-Cape Greece office, and visited the Pelion Peninsula in April 2024 to check the routes of our trip

In 2023, I was able to get to know the beautiful Pelion and go hiking there. Pelion is a peninsula between Thessaloniki and Athens near the town of Volos. An impressive hiking area with well-maintained hiking trails, lush vegetation, many forests and a tranquility that is hard to imagine today. Of course, there aren't that many hikers in April, but this area is so huge that you can hike for hours without meeting a soul. And it will hardly be any different in the hiking months of May, June and September.

It can be considered lucky that I was able to visit the Pelion Mountains again this year in April 2024, but the occasion was less pleasant. First came storm Daniel in September 2023 and a few days later Pelion was hit a second time by storm Elias. Due to the heavy storms and rainfall, many routes were washed away or simply disappeared under tons of boulders and trees. There were landslides in some areas and some stretches of coastline have changed completely. 

Nevertheless, at S-Cape Travel, we want to continue offering our amazing hikes on the Pelion. Many travel agencies asked us why we didn't take this tour out of our program. Well, why? Quite simply, firstly, this area is still a dream and has so much beauty to offer and secondly, we want to help the locals, because if nobody visits anymore this area, the people there will lose an important part of their tourism income.

So, this year in April, I set off again to Pelion to check “our” routes. We had been in contact with the hotel owners and some Pelion interest groups on Facebook for months before I started our trip. The people there have worked tremendously throughout the winter to repair roads, build temporary bridges and repair many mule tracks, the so-called kalderimia. The kalderimia were the only connecting routes between the villages and settlements many hundreds of years ago.

However, the condition of some of the routes was unknown and that's where I came in. Unfortunately, some routes have simply disappeared. I had to walk many routes twice, optimistically I walked downhill until I simply couldn't get any further and then had to walk the same route back but now ascending and then to continue on the tarmac road. Fortunately, the roads there are not very busy, and you can enjoy the fantastic views. This happened several times and I tried to find our way through thorny bushes and undergrowth, with the result that my arms and legs were scratched and there was no path in sight. Of course, I can't expect our clients to go on adventures like that.

It was also a great experience to have different four-legged friends with me during two days. These lovely dogs were always one step ahead, waiting for me, especially in tricky places. They knew the routes inside out! At the end of the walks it was always hard to say goodbye, because you quickly get used to having such great companions!

Despite all the challenges, there are plenty of routes which survived the storm well and at points where it was no longer possible to continue (at least for the time being, as the locals are also working on this), I discovered a few new routes and added them to the program so that we can continue sharing our impressions and our love of Pelion with other hikers.

Hope to see you too one day on the beautiful peninsula of Pelion!

Warm regards from Anke