Thursday 26 May 2022
Monday 23 May 2022
Top tips
Here are a few tips in no particular order:
Use Tough Footwear
There is a lot of tough rocky terrain and a great deal of that is sharp limestone. Hence I would recommend boots with good grippy soles rather than lighter hiking shoes, which risk getting cut to shreds.
I used a new pair of La Sportiva Trango Tech leather GTX boots with an Sidas high arch inner sole and Darn Tough merino socks. Without any doubt these are the most comfortable pair of boots I have ever worn. What is even more remarkable is that they were just as comfortable on long road sections as they were in the more technical alpine terrain. Five stars!
Use Hiking poles
In Lissos I met an English day walker of a certain age who complained to me about his knees. So why didn't he use poles? Well, he had bought some and learnt all about them, but had failed to actually practice and didn't yet feel comfortable using them.
This was unfortunate. It was partly the result of poor advice and partly the result of poor preparation.
However Crete would not be an ideal place to learn how to use poles. For him Devon would have been just fine. You need to more or less view them as part of your own body before tackling really gnarly terrain.
This is definitely a trail that would be a great deal more difficult without poles.
Choose the Time of Year with care
I have only been in Crete during April and half of May , so can't speak for the other months from personal experience.
However I heard repeatedly that the winter was harsh (and the deep snow was evidence of that). It is also colder, wetter and windier. Many cafes/tavernas/rooms are closed during the off season which would make the trip far less enjoyable.
In the summer months it is, in my opinion, far too hot and water would become increasingly a problem. Not only would there be reduced or zero flow in streams, but one needs to consume much more due to sweating at higher temperatures.
Autumn might bring lower temperatures, but streams probably won't replenish until after the winter.
So that leaves Spring, and it really was perfect. Next to no rain and temperatures between 15º and 25º in the main. Even the winds were in general not too bad (with one or two notable exceptions).
Water, water is not everywhere...
It is wise to take the subject of water quite seriously, especially in a place that can be as dry and hot as Crete. I set off with a Sawyer Mini water filter, but in the first three weeks I only used it once. So, in what might have been a false weight economy, I left it with a load of other gear in Heraklion until after the hike was over.
I found a water tap/spout in the majority of the villages (without resorting to asking). There were also some streams, but if I took water from these it was only for boiling or washing.
I rarely carried more than a litre, except towards the end of the day when I figured I had reached my last water point before camping. Then I filled with 3-4 litres which was plenty to last me until a village on the following day.
Only twice did a encounter a well/cistern from which I might have drawn water, and in both cases they were far too deep and of doubtful quality. I dispensed with my 10m cord and wide-mouthed Nalgene bottle in Heraklion as it seemed it wasn't going to get any use out of them. It was also not cold at night enough to need the latter as a hot water bottle.
On a couple of occasions I was able to draw water from an overflowing domestic tank. Both of these were at times when there was no other water around and reaching some would entail walking a good deal further. So I was grateful for that but also made aware that not all rivers marked on the map contain any water, even in April. I had my emergency 1 litre buffer with me but it would have made for a much less enjoyable camp.
The key bit of preparation was to identify all the water points that I could on the map ahead of time and mark these with blue pins. To this I may have added one or two that I encountered along the way. The KML file containing these can be found in the downloads section.
One last comment about water concerns the canyons. In the first two I walked 2-3 hours with no sign of water, before suddenly finding there was a decent stream of water flowing. In the last canyon (Gorge of the Dead) it was the reverse. There was water for about the first hour then after that nothing.
Pace yourself
I arrived in Crete after an enforced two year gap since my last hike, so I knew it would take a little effort to get "trail-hardened". One of the features of this hike are that there are many styles in which one could do it, depending on personal preferences. What I hadn't quite appreciated until I got there was just how small the island is and how easy to break up the journey into manageable sections, with a rest day thrown in every so often.
This is how I broke up the journey:
- Kissamos to Sougia (5 days)
Thanks to some timely advice I camped in Lissos 3km before Sougia, which was brilliant in its own right. This then gave me a near total rest day in Sougia where I rented a room. It was a Saturday so there were two small shops open where I could buy food. I could recharge batteries and do laundry in the room. There were also plenty of restaurants. - Sougia to Omalos (2 days)
A short section of only two days up the Agia Irini gorge. It was on this section that I had confirmation from some hikers coming the other way about the impracticality of traversing the White Mountain section without ski touring equipment. The only way to leave Omalos was by hitchhiking. It took an hour to get a ride, but then only another hour later I was dropped off at the bus station in Chania. - Rest day in Chania
- Amoudari to Venerato (6 days)
- Two rest days in Chania
- Venerato to xxxx (6 days)
- Two rest days in Heraklion
- xxxx to yyyy (6 days)
- Rest day in Heraklion
- yyyy to Kato Zakros (5 days)
- Return to Athens (5 days)
West to East makes more sense
My strong advice is to ignore the track description completely. Not least because it is given East to West which for several good reasons is clearly not the optimal direction.
A quick shout-out to the young German couple who I met near Zakros on my last morning. They had the rationale of walking E4 all the way back home to Germany. In this one case it makes a perfectly reasonable argument by taking the entire route as a whole.
However if you are just walking the length of Crete on its own then going West to East generally means:
- Not having the hot afternoon sun in your eyes
- Not having the prevailing westerly winds in your face
- Crossing the pass near Dikti in by far the easier direction
- Climbing up the Minoan Mule Trail to enjoy the view of the Lasithi plateau
- Leaving the eastern end (which I regard as more scenic) to the last
- Getting the easier road walking and flatter coastal section over in the early part of the walk, leaving the higher and harder sections till later
- Arriving at the beach at Kato Zakros through the wonderful Gorge of the Dead at the end of the trail rather than the much less scenic Kissamos town
Other than the Germans' reason I can think of literally no good reason to walk East to West.
Even accepting the adage that "one always thinks that one has just walked over a pass the best way", I can think of a number of cases (including all three gorges) where I am really convinced this was true.
But even without the passes there are still no actual reasons for not going West to East, provided you are not wedded to the description in the guide book.
Sunday 22 May 2022
Acknowledgements
Several people are owed especial thanks for making this trip both possible and so enjoyable.