Refuge Psarthi from Glafkos (DEH), Patra 20141123

Trail run to refuge Psarthi from Glafkos (next to DEH). Most of the times so far I did my running to Psarthi starting from Pournarokastro (which is about 15min drive up). This time we did it all the way from Glafkos. It appeared to be great idea!

0,0k at 165m - Glafkos (DEH), parking. There is a big parking just before restaurants on the corner. There is also nice water spring to fill in bottles for the run. Path starts exactly from the gate of DEH to the left, just next to the fence following the river. There is nice, a bit hidden, waterfall on the way up. This section (until asphalt road to Souli) is step hiking path climb (~140m in less than one kilometer).

0,8k at 300m - Asphalt towards Souli. After reaching asphalt, we followed it back for about 300m, then we took off to the right with not so much vissible 'path', just to find dirt road going up. Then again off the dirt road looking to find a proper vissible path (not so easy to be honest). When found, it is very well vissible. It goes very steep uphills for another ~1k, gaining more than 200m in altitude, quite technical and quite fun :-D

2,9k at 640m - Dirt road towards Pournarokastro. Leaving the path and onto dirt road towards Pournarokastro.

3,8k at 650m - Pournarokastro. Quick refill of water supplies and we continued up to Psarthi with well known dirt road first.

6,5k at 880m - hiking path, water spring. Another quick refill and hiking path starts. Also well known from many hikes/runs in the past, all the way up to refuge and water spring next to it.

9,4k at 1350m - Refuge Psarthi. This time longer break with some snack and lots of water. Surprizingly it was quite a hot day and we drunk lots of water. From the refuge we followed dirt road down in direction back to Pournarokastro. Now we have entered shadowed area and temperature dropped few degrees. We even saw some frozen water on the road!

14,2k at 990m - View point. This is awesome spot on the way down. Few meters off the road, it offer great views through the valley of Glafkos river with Erymanthos way in background! Check out the photo!

17,5k at 750m - Left turn. Normally the 'main' dirt road continues straight to Pournarokastro, but we took a left turn towards Souli this time (just for a change and in order not to descent with same path again).

19,6k at 520m - Cut with small path. Every occasion we had, we looked for some shortcuts to get off the road... Sometimes they were not necessarly shortcuts :-P

20,8k at 380m - Old path. To avoid asphalt as much as possible, we took an old stone path here.

22,2k at 300m - DEH. Back to initial climb. Same path from here.

23,0k at 170m - Glafkos, water spring. Finish :-D Lots of water and back to the car.

I mark it moderate considering also our effort (quite easy tempo, 4h overall). The first part up to Pournarokastro is a bit technical but great fun (cant believe I was skipping it all the time with car :-/). Lots of running was on dirt roads, but we knew it from the start.