Mt. Parnassus!

Rock Climbing and Cave Adventures. . .

 

Mouth if the Cave

The weekend of October 19th, I decided to get in on a trip to Mt. Parnassus. The trip was advertised as a weekend with out door recreation, adventures, and some time for relaxation. Only 5 CYA students we in attendance. 7 girls in the Grad program at Athens college joined our group, as well as two Greek University students, Bill and Aris. 

We made our way up to Parnassus in the early evening on Friday and arrived at the coolest looking year-round camp I've ever seen. We had some time to settle into our lodgings- comfy cabins, before dinner. Our first activity of the weekend was after dinner, when we all went swimming in a hot spring not too far from the camp. It reeked of sulfur, but it was hot. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold at night in the mountains.

The View

The real fun began early the next morning. We went hiking around Mt. Parnassus. We made our way to a Monastery that was carved into the side of the rock. It was pretty cool. It doesn't appear to be in use anymore, but there is a bell on it you can ring. Its relatively tiny. Right next to it, there is a cave. The mouth of the cave opens up at the bottom of the hill, and opens up again just above the monastery. Shelby, a fellow CYA student, climbed the outside of the cliff to get to the upper mouth of the Cave. I, however, climbed from the inside of the cave to the top. It was a tight squeeze but awesome nonetheless. 

Icons in Churches

Walking down the other side of the hill, through the valley proved to be a bit challenging for us. There is an entire side that is basically loose gravel sloped down hill. Our trail required us to cross it completely. Fortunately, only on student went down, and it wasn't a bad slip. We visited 2 or 3 other little churches built around the slopes. They are very old, and still have their early fresco's on them. They are still in use, but they're tiny. They're still decorated in with beautiful icons and trinkets. It was difficult to get pictures of them because they were pretty dark, we had to depend on our flash.

By the time we got back to camp, everyone was exhausted and ready for a good meal, which is exactly what we got! Afterwards, everyone kind of temporarily fell off the face of the earth and napped, many of us fell asleep by the pool. On the concrete. Still wearing our hiking cloths.

Nat, Aris and Bill

By the early evening, everyone was feeling slightly recharged. So we decided to learn some archery. There were some Katnis feelings fluttering around as we took turns shooting the target. I wasn't too bad. One Grad student managed to shoot a bucket out of eye shot. Some of us decided to test out the trainer rock climbing wall. We even got Nadia, a CYA advisory, to try.

With dinner, came some little adventures. After the meal, as the wine was flowing, our host and our new Greek friends decided to show us a game. The Table Game.

Tower Climbing

You get as sturdy wooden table and the point is to get completely around it (on top and bottom) without touching the floor. It required some serious muscle and weird finagling of leg positions to get it right, but i just kept ending up on my head. 

I retired early that night, feeling completely exhausted and ready to sleep.

The next day, we headed out again to visit some old ruins, compliments of King Philip of Macedon. They were beautiful and view of the country side was amazing. We climb up an old tower and atop an old wall. It was a very peaceful moment.

Wall walking.

We also got to rock climb on some real cliffs! I've never used rock climbing shoes or climbed actual cliffs before, so this was quite a treat for me. There was a smaller slope everyone tried and got up. The more difficult one was only conquered by a select few of us. Yes, US! I managed to climb up to the top of a 90 ft cliff. It was awesome and horrifying and incredible all at the same time. A few other students tried, one or two gave up. But it was still a good time all around.

We left Parnassus that day.

It was a really nice opportunity because for the first time, we got to have adventures in a smaller group of people. We relaxed and really enjoyed every minute of it. I got to know people within CYA and the Grad program that i'd hardly talked to the entire time i've been in Athens.

For more pictures, Click here!!

The password is "Parnassus"