1st of February 2004.
The weather finally got better, a temperature rising from minus 14 to minus 4 degrees Celsius, so... time to hit the water!
Last minute cancellations from a few still cold... paddlers, could not discourage us from going to river Mornos this Sunday morning. Our first goal, upper Mornos, was running in medium to high flow, perfect paddling conditions for this 6km steep, class IV ride. Unfortunately the snowcovered banks of this tight and shadowed gorge, were not tempting at all, so our team of usual players, Konidis, Pavlos and Nikos, headed south, to the sunny side of lower Mornos. Plan B was to run the 12kms of the class III to IV lower section.
We had spent a few hours of public relations with the local taxi drivers, when the third one, agreed to leave his card game in the village square cafe at Lidoriki, to drive shuttle for us to Mousounitsa. It wasn't easy to assure him that the road conditions were not so bad and we have had no problem passing the few difficult spots (ice, snow, rockfalls!) with Pavlos car an hour ago.
When Apostolos, the taxi driver, took a good look at Pavlos and then its Opel Astra, I was afraid he would not appreciate the car's jeeping caracter, that Pavlos was so proud of! He finally accepted to drive us to the put in, so Pavlos's plan C for an early lambchops lunch, would not be effected.
The river was just beautiful, almost as beautiful as our new paddling jackets!!! We paddled fast, thanks to the considerably high flow, over wave trains and familiar class III rapids. The rapids were 50 to 100m long, easily scouted from the eddy before, but for photographic reasons and only for that, whenever I was leading I chose to get out and get photo-safety position (explanation in the alternative vocabulary).
Pretty soon we reached the infamous log rapid. A landslide at the left slope, marks the river bend to the right, through some very unhealthy wood logs, that I personally and closely encountered last year! This spot needs more caution when the flow is lower and you have to stay at river left, as the flow drags you to the right bend where the logs may be kind of trouble. In the second part of this rapid, the river is divided and you have the option of an easy run at the left, or an adrenaline class IV push at the right. Be careful and scout this section, as one of the possible lines leads to a log jam.
The river goes on with series of class III rapids, until the end of the first gorge. The snowpacked rock slab over the village of Sykia, on the north face of the mountain Giona, one of the most impressive mountain sights of Greece, appears in our left. We cannot easily turn our eyes back in front of us, thankfully the river flows carefree for the next couple of kms, so we can gaze the picturesque mountain setting of Giona on the left and Vardousia on the right.
We pass the rock tower on our left and we slowly get into another lower but equally alive gorge. After a tight right bend, the river drops through an extended rapid to the left, followed by a couple of more class III to class IV rapids. One of them, leads to "Sympligades" two big boulders forming a tight passage with great water pressure, that definetely needs a boof-to-break-through solution. My favourite!
The arced stone bridge of Lefkaditi, showed up to mark the end of the difficult stretches. In a few minutes, we paddled the last 1.5kms, to our take out, the concrete bridge connecting Lidoriki and Koniakos. In a few hundrend meters the river ends into Mornos reservoir.
D.Konstantinidis and P.Georgilas paddling the easier stretches of Mornos, with north face of Giona mountain in the background
Yes! For one more time we didn't have the pleasure to use our headlamps, even if we pushed the put in time limit once again!
More pages about Mornos:
Mornos trip report
