In Search of the Ancient Gods

With the ski pole, I release my bindings and free my boots. I look down. The tracks of our skis follow the broad ridge that leads up here, to the top of Mount Skala. On the last 150 vertical meters, the snow was hard-packed and windblown. Not a great pleasure to climb, and probably not a great pleasure to ski down either. Further below, however, I'm sure the icy snow will give way to the most beautiful spring corn imaginable, the kind of snow that is made for some memorable turns. I look up, slowly, almost with reverent awe. The actual summit of this mountain just a stone's throw away, only seven meters higher from where I stand. But it's further than it looks. To get there, we'd have to descend and then climb back up. Not an easy climb either.

That's not what I want. I prefer to sit in the snow and stare at this vertical stone altar through which, in the 1930s, the great Italian climber Emilio Comici found an elegant route to the summit, the top of Mount Olympus. So I remain silent, my eyes fixed on the limestone. I can try as hard as I want, but I cannot see the son of Cronus and Rhea, the Sovereign of the Gods, the lightning pitcher, the seducer of goddesses, nymphs and mortals: The immortal Zeus. I can't even see any of the others: Hera or Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, or Hermes. But I am sure that their spirits are still alive among these rocks.

Their importance throughout the history of Europea is so great that you cannot think of this mountain and these lands without feeling an aura of mythology. Therefore, despite the fact that I climbed mountains much higher and often more difficult than this, the feeling that now pervades my soul is among the strongest I've ever had. It's an emotion that was created many years before I was born, yet it remains as powerful as when Homer put it in words. Here was the beginning of what we are today; here is the base of our culture, the foundation of our civil and democratic society. There is no way that this legacy has not left a mark on these rocks. Once again, I look to the top of Mount Olympus. The rocks are still deserted.

Only a chough spreads its wings, flying down from the top. Rapidly beating its wings, the bird gains in altitude and stands still in mid-air before quickly disappearing towards the Gulf of Thessaloniki. Who knows, perhaps this is Zeus in one of his many disguises. I take off the skins and put my skis back on, close my boots and begin the descent. It's the last day of our little adventure. We will board a plane tomorrow, and after a few hours we will reach home. But the flight itself is not the actual trip. We may return to our loved ones, but we will also return to our everyday lives. The actual trip is man's confrontation with himself and what the road ahead confronts him with.

This is the only perspective the homecoming makes sense to me: It's not the end of an adventure, but a moment within a circular path. The return to where it all began and where the story of the trip can be processed and told. Living this right here and now, in the country of Greece, the birthplace of Homer's Ulysses, the prototype of all travel narratives, connects me with ancient history and Greek mythology. Crossing Epirus and climbing three mountain ranges, we weren't blessed with powder but with exceptionally excellent corn snow instead. The kind of buttery, soft slush that delivers unparalleled skiing pleasure. We met a few other skiers, learning that even in Greece, there are backcountry adventurers.

There aren't too many of them, but the ones we met had great skills and were filled with the same desire to enjoy snowy mountains. The mountain massif with Tymphe, Smolikas, Lakmos, and Olympus is a destination that allowed us to venture into the wild, crossing tracks of bears and wolves, but barely any traces of other skiers. Places where time passes slower than anywhere else. Greece has always been a magical place to me. Every time I go, I feel like I am revisiting my childhood. Back then, in the early Sixties, my parents would take me to provincial places in Italy with deep cultural history. Instead of being a tourist, I learned to melt with my environment. By dropping into its snowy slopes, I become part of Mount Olympus and close another circle.

A trip within the trip, touching my deepest emotions. A few days earlier, we had climbed and skied Mount Goura with a group of Greek backcountry skiers during the "Timfi Dressed in White", a gathering of skiers organized by two lovely people from Ioannina, Mara and Vassili. We met with Constantine Papanicolaou, a Californian photographer and video maker of Hellenic origins who had produced "Frozen Ambrosia," the first film dedicated to backcountry skiing in Greece. A beautiful movie, filled with special emotions and passion. On the way, we spent two days in Samarina and stayed at a hotel owned by Lakis, a wonderful man treating us with great food and several glasses of Tsipouro.

We climbed Mount Skolia, first following a trail through giant pine forests before finally skinning to the top and enjoying another beautiful summit with magnificent views. On our way down, we were once again treated with unbelievable corn snow. From Metsovo, we hiked to Mount Lakmos, where we found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful glacial valley with views that were nothing short of the most renowned mountain ranges of the Alps. That night, we got to enjoy the traditional dances and songs of the Aromanians, an ethnic group said to be direct descendants of the Roman Dacian troops. All this eventually brought us here, on the day before we'd have to leave Greece and return home.

We are creating massive spray and waves of slush as we descend from Mount Skala in the Olympus mountains. Pure happiness under clear skies and a warm sun suggesting that we are very close to the Gulf of Thessaloniki. I bend my knees and ankles on every turn, and in doing so, the rhythm of a Sirtaki connects with my heartbeat.