Hitting the snow at 1700m 

On one of our last days in Greece we had to get across the 1700m high pass called the Katara. We didn’t want to take the busy toll motorway route for obvious reasons (especially because of the long tunnels) so we were following the old Aroad route which was working out very well.

But we hit a snag… The A road was suddenly blocked by a barrier. We decided to take it even though we could see snow at the very top of the pass… We’d had 7 days of pure sunshine so we hoped it wasn’t much and that we would only have to pull the bike across a few 100m of snow at the very most… 

It didn’t end up like that but we don’t like turning back (especially after climbing for 20km) so where there’s a will there’s a way… 

This little video sums up the rest of the story pretty well…

Onwards to Albania!

4 thoughts on “Hitting the snow at 1700m ”

  1. Hey, we are the guys from London, met you going the other way yesterday in Macedonia… How far did you have to push over the snow? We are considering this route… Thanks!

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    1. Hello! We pushed/pulled about 4.5km in total. That was on the 25th March and it has been warm since so it should be shorter. The snow was deep though, over 1m, so I imagine there is still some there. If you see our video we rigged up a harness and one of us pulled from that while the other pushed and balanced the bike. We also took the bags off and walked them over parts, then came back for the bike. It might be easier for you since you have far less stuff than us! It took us about 2.5 hours in all. Let us know how you get on.

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      2. We cycled the pass a few days ago and the road was all clear! There was some pretty deep snow next to the road but the road itself was absolutely fine. The views down to Meteora from the top were the most stirring of our whole trip. Thanks again!

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