The National Parks of Greece

My initial impression of Greece is that it resembles the American West in so many ways. Driving north of Athens, the granite mountains covered in oak and juniper remind me of central Arizona, even more so with the recent fires that have denuded the landscape so that only gnarled white skeletons of trees remain. Like the West, most of Greece is arid, rural, mountainous, bisected with deep canyons, and dominated by conifers. The place even smells like Colorado!

The Greek trees have the western analogs in what appears as a textbook example of convergent evolution. Even the life zones are similar. The high peaks are covered with alpine flowers, wind whipped scraggly pines from tree line. Here, the Balkan pine resembles the white bark pines of Montana. Then the spruce/fir zone, with different species of spruce and Caledonia fir instead of Douglas fir. Then the pine forest tumbles down the lower slopes with Aleppo pine instead of ponderosa pine. And the roadsides as you descend into the lowlands are overrun with tree of heaven and scotch broome.

The first national park on my tour is Mt Parnassos, the lower slopes which contain the towns of Arachova and Delphi. Just outside the park is the Mt Parnassos ski resort, all above tree line with multiple lifts. But apparently recent years have not yielded much snow. Nonetheless, the road to ski resort makes an easy access to get up high and escape the heat of Delphi, but everything above Arachova seems practically abandoned. All the ski chalets are boarded up, the cafes all shuttered. The only place I found open was a café and bike shop. Up on the mountain, there are theoretically trails, none seemed to have been used much and I simply followed the ridge line up Mt. Gerontovrachos, which dominates the skyline at 7776 feet. Other than some lovely alpine flowers and a verdant forest below, the mountain seemed very quiet, whereas on a hot June day, a mountainous national park in the US would be packed. But I’m getting the sense Greeks aren’t really into outdoor recreation like hiking and camping, and mountain biking, etc. Indeed as the woman running the café told me, most Greeks think of bikes as children’s toys, consequently the mountain bike rentals next door hasn’t really caught on.

“Use and enjoyment” doesn’t really seem to be the primary focus of Greek national parks, but biodiversity is the greater goal, in theory. How this actually plays out is far more complicated. Given its steep elevational gradient, Parnassos contains multiple vegetative life zone hosting a variety of native and endemic species.