I Climbed Mt Olympus | Greece Nature Travel Sol Vlog

There she is, Mount Olympus. Wow, a little bit bigger than I thought. Oh yeah, well, first look at the mountain, decent amount of snow up there. Exciting, exciting. A challenge from the gods. Yeah, we got a better view up here. All right, got all my supplies, my snow spikes. My unfortunately polyester rain jacket, but you know, sometimes if you didn't pack properly, then you have to make do with the rental. What else? Uh, yeah, it's going to be a pretty decent climb, pretty intense one to the top, the very top. There's a few thin and very steep pathways. So I'm excited for that, and it's going to be great. I'm very, very excited, which I don't feel excitement like this too often, so that's a great sign. I'm doing something outside of the comfort zone. But yeah, we'll get to it. All right, we are in Le Tocoró. The town beneath Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus is like the other side of the hotel there. But I'm fueling up. I've got sheep feta, olive oil, butter on rice cakes. This will be my dinner. Finally got to a decent grocery store, so that's great. Got some raw meat as well, which I'll have later. Um, yeah, so when I got to the hotel, told the desk clerk that I was looking to climb Mount Olympus tomorrow, and he was like, "You sure?" I was like, "Yeah." He said, "There's snow up there." I was like, "Yeah, I can see that. Bit of snow, what's, you know, it's a bit of snow." Apparently some people recently turned back due to the snow. Now that could be because they weren't as physically fit as me, or they just didn't want to risk it, they were a bit older, who knows. I think This climb is not something that is super, super dangerous to go, go up and do if there's snow. I talked to my buddy who's an expert mountaineer about it, so it will still be fine. But, uh, could be that conditions are a little bit challenging, which is good. It's good. Still doing everything safely, of course, but, uh, yeah, that's That's where we're at. Um, as you're coming in, as you saw, I saw the height of the mountain, and it was really quite motivating to see that it was not going to be, you know, like an easy hike, really. I'm excited, I'm excited. We'll see how it goes. Starting early in the morning, we'll fuel up, just eat a bunch this evening, and yeah, then get going probably 4 AM or so tomorrow. The day has arrived. We are ready to go. We are packed, we are strapped up, we have all our snacks and ready to go. Let's hit the road. All right, it is 5:22 AM, a little bit later than what I wanted to start, but we'll just make up for it. I think if I smash it at the start of the hike, I'm really going to reap those dividends later. So I'm going to push hard under the COVID of darkness. We got about 44 minutes until dawn, so let's get ready and get on the road. Get my headlamp out and, uh, walk through the dark. Heading off to begin the climb. Well, the climb has Gan. Beautiful river next to us. Light's coming through, won't need the torch for too long.

Wonderful.

Already heating up, so I had to take off the top layer. There's some sunrise action there. Wonderful. Nearly out of the forest line. Sun's coming out here.

Beautiful.

It's a few gusts of wind, so I put the outer layer back on. Still warm. I think conditions are going to be great. There's going to be no rain or anything like that. Looks like there's a few clouds up there at the top, but that's what happens when you go to the realm of the gods. And you're high up. This feels like a bit of a pilgrimage. I've been getting a little emotional coming up here. I just want to thank you all for supporting me, as you do, and I'm so grateful to be able to do my work. Do my work and live my life. I just hope that I get the guidance to fulfill my purpose. That's, that's what I want most of all. As part of this hike, meditating on that, thinking about the gods and the role of us as Mortal men, what are responsibilities and other such things are always important to think about what you're dedicating your life to. And yeah, I'm just so happy to be doing what I'm doing. So there you go, there's That's my, that's my one emotional moment of the vlog. Let's keep going. Hardest bit is yet to come, I believe. Is the air getting thinner? Or is my cardio just not up to scratch? Who knows. It's getting a bit chilly now. Thankfully we have the blessing of Apollo with the sun out, so I'm good. There's snow on some of the path now. Really getting up there. Doesn't look so far away. Just taking refuge.

Rock here because there's going to be no windbreak up there.

So I'm just going to have a little drinky poos. It's just slow going up here, uh, just keep on going, rest when you need to, and then get up again.

I can taste the quartz. That's where we're going.

Getting a couple cramps. There's the top, very close now. I might as well use all my supplements on the ascent up, make it a little bit easier, hopefully stop the cramping with some minerals and such. Highly enjoyable place to be, really enjoyable experience.

I think this is one of the coldest places I've ever been.

We're so close! I just saw two black birds. I don't know if they were ravens, but that's a pretty cool sign if you know what two black ravens or two black birds means.

Odin!

Oh yeah, there's, there's Neds. So now I have to decide if I'm going to climb up the rocky cliff face.

Look at that.

To get to Mythikas, which is the, the real pink. I don't know, boys.

I don't know.

Being by myself, that might just be a little bit dicey. Okay, there is a path. Marked with these red and yellow bits. Guess we'll see. Guess this is what they mean by scramble. Check out this— yoiks! Oh goodness, it's really not as, uh, not as bad as it looked. Sheltered from the wind on this side. Beautiful. Sun warming as well.

Nearly there, very nearly there.

So close.

Woo!

Oh, there's a crazy echo. Wow, guys, incredible feeling of accomplishment, of just awe at the mountains.

We made it very top.

God bless Greece. Thank you, Greece. Thank you to this land for having me, for allowing me to travel safely upon it. Here I give my acknowledgement, my love, my energy to the land itself, to the gods, to the spirits that take care of it. And I'm just so blessed and lucky to be here, that everything worked out as it always does in the sun. Uh, I'll definitely come back here, maybe run a trip if you guys want to do an expedition with me here to Mount Olympus. That could be a lot of fun. Drop a comment if you would like to come on a Mount Olympus trip because it's pretty spectacular. All right, let's head back down. Of course, you know that I could not leave without sunning my balls on Mount Olympus, so that's what I'm doing now. No, I'm not going to show that on YouTube, uh, but it had to be done. It had to be done just for a little bit so that I can say that I did. Chilling, going down, blue skies. Rest of it is going to be a breeze once we're refueled with oranges and honey. Uh, going to see if I can jog down a little bit, little trail run down so we can get home in a good time.

Tastes so good.

Well, this is the, the bit that we were at before where we could barely see that far away. Now the clouds are cleared. I've put on again my, my little woolly thing just because the sun now is getting— we're at peak UV. Reflect on the, on the snow. I love the sun. I've already got a lot of sun and I will continue to get a lot of sun, but it just makes sense to have a little extra layer for this bit while we go over the snow so they don't get too, too roasted. But yeah, easy goings now.

Look, look, look!

Hey, wow!

Yikes!

So how am I feeling? Pretty good, honestly. No massive fatigue. My feet are pretty beat up. The muscles are going to be, yeah, a little tender. A lot of rocks, and especially I'm wearing barefoot shoes, which is much better, don't get me wrong, but inevitably your feet touching the ground, you know, they're tough because I wear barefoot shoes. But, uh, when you hike, you know, 10 miles with however many thousand elevation gain on awkward rocks, then, uh, yeah. But they'll recover even stronger. That's what I love about things like this. Same with my cardio, same with my temperature, uh, tolerance of my body. Putting— getting put through those extreme temperatures, I'll be stronger the other side of it. So I'm feeling good. I will rest up and drink and eat a lot tonight, find a fresh orange juice, and yeah, great, great success. Also wanted to talk about nutrition for events such as this. Obviously you saw I had fruit, coconut water, maple syrup, honey, uh, rice crackers, cheese. I would have had milk if I had raw milk available, Anything quick-digesting carbohydrates, raw, that you can really mix in your mouth with saliva to increase the speed of the absorption of the sugars. Natural, of course. That is what you want when you're doing intense hiking, intense any exercise. I saw one guy on the trail who was wearing— eating a bag of mixed nuts look like the things that you eat off the bar. Uh, he also had rolled his ankles, so it's like, what happened there? Not judging, not judging. It's just there are very obvious better choices for nutrition when you're in an athletic environment and you want to perform. Quick-digesting sugars should be your main, main Choice. Take a look at the greens here. I think this might have been the part that was dark when I was walking up. Absolutely stunning, getting that nice green light through the sun, through the leaves from the sun. Oh boy, I need some sugar. All right boys, we got to be close now. Surely been going pretty swiftly. I recognize this bit from this morning. I think we're about 5 minutes out. I lost my trusty tripod on the top of the mountain. I think it was in my pocket and it just fell out when I was at the top in the snow. So I would just like to dedicate this moment to that tripod. He was with me for a long time, a lot of travels, took a lot of imagery, and some of the imagery in this vlog. So hail, hail tripod! We're almost there, lads. Come on now!

Oh, so nice.

So incredible, crystal clear and super cold. So refreshing. If you get the opportunity after a hike to refresh yourself in a flowing stream, there's nothing better. I wish I, I wish I brought a towel and I could just swim in that little cold plunge. Man, incredible finish to end of the hike. We're over the bridge there and then back to the car park. Wow, look at this! I didn't see this this morning, but wow, waterfall! It's like several pools here, crystal clear. That's— I want to swim so bad. I might even just go without my towel. Oh, nature has Oh, hi! And here we are, we made it. Time to refuel with juice, hit the sauna, return my snow spikes, which I didn't even use. Uh, now what a ride! Thank you, Mount Olympus. And it's just my incredible luck because the cafe at the bottom of The mountain has freshly squeezed orange juice, so I've ordered two. Rivers humming by. Beautiful, beautiful place. Just take it in before I leave. Already drank the first one. Better than beer. Important part of the hike, you get your shoes off for the first time. I'd actually taped my feet because I had blisters from the other walk. Little ones, small ones, but tape around is really good. I didn't have any pain or didn't increase the blisters or anything. Ah, now to eat. So for my lunch, I'm going to have cheese and, uh, got a refill of water, put some honey in it, make some, some honey water.

I'm not going to get into the raw meat, I don't think.

I just want to snack this down and then keep going, and I'll have raw meat once I'm