Athos path clearing 2021

I joined the Friends of Mount Athos (FOMA) path clearing team for their 2021 pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain. It was mid-September, and a few of us met at Gatwick airport for the very early flight out to Thessaloniki, where we joined others of the team, and travelled on by coach to Ouranopolis. This year it was a smaller group than normal. Seventeen of us travelled in to the Holy Mountain by boat the following day, having collected our permits to stay (Diamonitiria) before setting off from Ouranopolis.

I spent the first week at the monastery of Zographou. This is a Bulgarian monastery, one of the three non-Greek monasteries on the peninsula. Five of us stayed there: Rob, Jan, Rodger, Dan and me. Dan doesn’t appear in this photo because he had to leave early.

We were given an early breakfast in the refectory and then went out to clear paths. We would spend eight hours or so walking and clearing. We carried lunch with us: usually bread, olives, sometimes feta cheese or halva.

The second week Rodger and I joined another team, working out of the Monastery of Konstamonitou. This team consisted of Rodger, Dimitris, Daniel and me.

We would normally set out at first light to clear paths. The pictures which follow show a particularly difficult bit of path clearing, where some trees had fallen over the path and were held tightly by smilax vines, which are thorny and hard to dislodge.

We covered quite a lot of territory in the two weeks. The tracks on the image below show the paths taken, but of course most of the time I would walk forward, and then back again, perhaps several times. That is why the tracks look a bit like hedgehogs!

On the final Saturday we were given a lift down to the ‘arsanas’ or port of the monastery, and took the ferry back to Ouranopolis.