15/09/2011 Greece VII: Stavros, or was it Tom?

We completed our circuit of Olympus today. Myself and Anna wandered up the Enipeas gorge from Litochoro.

Towards Mytikas (Μύτικας, 2.917 μ.)

We then drove round and up to the start of the trekkers path at Prionia. Annie and Anna had coffee, but Adamos had the brilliant idea of having a light lunch of fassolatha (white bean soup; φασολάδα), which was extremely tasty.

View from the cafe at Prionia

Before leaving Prionia, Annie and Anna took a wander (unbeknownst to either me or Adamos) up the first bit of the trekkers path to a small waterfall. We waited for about 30 minutes. I still have little idea what they were doing all that time. I followed in their footsteps when they returned, running up the steps. The waterfall was small, little more than a trickle. I'm sure it is much more impressive in spring, and certainly a much quieter place than the cafe, only two minutes from the car park.

  

 Saddled up, hopefully not for a trek to the summit...

Leaving Prionia and the foothills, we drove further north, before cutting back to the west to find the still active normal fault on the edge of the mountain. We got lost several times on the way, asking locals for directions. In return, we often got their life story. This was especially true on one long stretch of road, where we met an elderly gentleman tending to his vineyard. He must have been glad of the company, because Adamos ended up talking to him for about 5 minutes. After this, the man scurried away for a minute only to return to the car, his hands full with two enormous bunches of white and red grapes. We  thanked him profusely, than continued on our way, savouring the large sweet fruits as we went. 

Several detours and diversions later, we found ourselves travelling south, the Livadi ophiolitic body on our right hand side. Finishing the loop we started yesterday, we found ourselves a couple of kilometers away from one of the key sites of Clive Barton's PhD on Olympos. The contact between the Pelagonian and Olympos rocks was only some 200 meters from the road, so, after looking at a few folds closer to the small quarry where we parked the car, Anna and myself walked up. 

The contact, once apparently well exposed, is now largely overgrown with scrubby bushes and low trees. The schist adjacent to the contact is extremely friable, the sizeable micas weathering out and forming a more hospitable substrate for vegetation than the material on either side.

Oddly for a contact described variously as extensional (Kilias and others) and thrust (Barton), the sense of shear apparent from small-scale folding at this 30-40 degree dipping contact is consistently sinistral, rather than normal or reverse. An opportunity for more research?

Looking toward the Olympos carbonates just past Barton's contact
(schists visible on the lower left hand side of the picture)

After about 30 minutes, we returned to the car and made the return journey to Leptocaria. We ate in again. A smaller affair than the night before; the sons ate elsewhere. The food remained just as tasty though, and still plentiful. Souvlaki and salads made a very agreeable meal to finish my annual pilgrimage.