#baud-bovy

Today marks the 105th anniversary of the first climbers to reach Mount Olympus’s highest peak, famed for its place in Greek mythology as home of the Twelve Olympian gods.

Since that date, it is thought about 10,000 hikers visit the 2,917 metre-high mountain mountain each year, the highest mountain in Greece and the second highest in altitude in the Balkan peninsula.

Most of climbers today don’t venture all the way to the summit, called Mytikas.

But on 2 August, 1913, a Greek man, Christos Kakkalos, led two Swiss adventurers in conquering Mount Olympus.

In July of 1913, photographer and publisher Frédéric Boissonnas (1858-1946) and author and art critic Daniel Baud-Bovy (1870-1958) arrived in the city of Thessaloniki.

The pair, both Swiss nationals, had been on a tour of the newly-liberated Epirus region, and subsequently traveled to the northern Greek city at the invitation of the Greek government in order to observe and photograph the war effort.

To make the most of the eight-day waiting period in between their two mandatory shots of the cholera vaccine, the two men decided to fulfill their long-held dream of exploring Mount Olympus.

By the late 19th century, there had already been 25 attempts to conquer the mythical mountain by numerous foreign explorers, scientists and mountaineers, yet all had ended in failure.