An Imbros Gorge hike is a walk through the narrow limestone gorge of Imbros in Sfakia, in the south-west of Crete. It is one of the outdoor Greece tours that start from Chania or Rethymno.
What is an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike is a walk on foot through a gorge. A gorge is a deep, narrow valley with steep walls of rock. This gorge lies in the range of peaks called the White Mountains, or Lefka Ori.
In Greek, the gorge is written Φαράγγι Ίμπρου. Read aloud, those two Greek words sound like Faragi Imbrou. The Imbros Gorge runs parallel to the Samariá Gorge. Parallel means that the two gorges run side by side in the same direction. It is like two lanes on one road.
An Imbros Gorge hike goes downhill, which means the path slopes down instead of up. Walking through the gorge means going downhill for 8 km and 650 m. Here km means kilometers and m means meters. Imbros village sits at an altitude of 780 meters. Altitude means how high a place stands above the sea.
A mule trail through the gorge once linked Chania and Hora Sfakion, before the road was built. Those are two places in Crete. A mule is a work animal that carries loads. A mule trail is a path for those animals. Today, an Imbros Gorge hike goes through the same gorge as that old trail.
- Area: Sfakia is a mountainous area in southwestern Crete, inside the Chania regional unit, an administrative district.
- Village: Imbros village sits where the plain of Askyfou, an area of flat land, ends in the south.
- Old trail: Remains of the old mule trail can still be seen in the gorge.
By legend, two brothers who were banished from Imbros in Turkey settled in Imbros village, Crete. A legend is a very old tale told again and again, and banished means sent away by force. A story like this gives an Imbros Gorge hike a local tale to tell.
How was the gorge formed for an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike is a walk in a gorge, a deep cleft, or split, between cliffs. Weathering, the slow breakdown of rock, and a river cut such a cleft. The cutting took geologic time, which means a very long stretch of years.
Rivers cut through the ground and wear away layers of rock. The moving water carries the loose material, called sediment, on downstream. Gorges form where a river’s source, its start, and its mouth, its end, sit at very different heights. That height gap is a useful idea to know before an Imbros Gorge hike.
Frost is another force that acts on the rock of cliffs. Water that freezes in cracks in the rock pushes the rocks apart. Large chunks then break off the walls. Caves tell a different story. When a cave system collapses, it leaves a canyon, a deep valley with steep sides, behind.
Karst is land over limestone, a rock. It has less surface water, because water drains down through joints, or cracks, in the rock. Karst develops best where limestone is dense, thinly bedded (in thin layers) and highly fractured (full of cracks). Each term is a tool for reading rock on an Imbros Gorge hike.
- Limestone landforms: Eroded limestone landforms include limestone pavements (flat rock surfaces), pot holes, cenotes (natural sinkholes), caves and gorges.
- Early streams: In its earliest stage, a stream cuts mainly downward, giving its valley a V shape when sliced across.
- Mountain plateaus: The White Mountains hold flat plateaus at heights of 500 to 1,100 metres, ringed by mountains.
Stream erosion is the wearing away of land by running water. It peaks during floods, when more and faster water carries a larger sediment load. This background in rock and water is worth carrying along on an Imbros Gorge hike.
Which villages lie along an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike follows a gorge, which is a deep, narrow valley with steep rock walls. Hora Sfakion, a village 74 km south of Chania, lies near the end of that gorge. Other places named below add history and local context.
Hora Sfakion is the capital of Sfakia, which means it is the main town of its area. The 2021 census counted 322 inhabitants there. A census is a count, made by the state, of everyone who lives in a place. A reader planning an Imbros Gorge hike can use these figures to judge the town’s size.
Anopoli was the largest town in the territory of Skordilis. A territory is the land held by one person or group. Skordilis’s territory reached from Askyfou to Frangokastello. Those two place names mark the outer edges of that land, and Anopoli stood inside it. Largest means no other town in that land was bigger.
The Church of Panagia Thymiani near Komitades is where the 1821 revolution began. The fertile plateau of Askifou lies halfway between Vrisses and Hora Sfakion, ringed by high peaks. A plateau is a high, flat area, and fertile land grows crops well. These places give an Imbros Gorge hike a wider story.
- Harbours: Hora Sfakion has two small harbours where the ferry boats from Agia Roumeli dock.
- Economy: Tourism, fishing, olive oil production and sheep and goat herding support the local economy of Hora Sfakion.
- Road: A road runs close along the western slope of the Imbros Gorge and offers scenic views.
Hora Sfakion was said to have had a hundred churches. That statement describes the past. It is a story about the place, not a count of buildings standing today. Such stories link an Imbros Gorge hike to the history of the village.
Which trees and plants line an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike runs through a gorge, a deep, narrow valley with steep rock walls. At mid-elevations on Crete, the woods are made of Calabrian pine and kermes oak. That term means the middle heights above sea level on its slopes.
The Cretan maple is a tree worth knowing before an Imbros Gorge hike. It reaches 10 metres in height. Its trunk, the thick main stem, grows up to 50 centimetres wide. Its flowers are yellow-green and hang in small clusters. Shape and flower colour are simple clues that separate one species from another.
Kermes oak is native to Greece, including Crete. Native means the tree grows in a place naturally, not because people planted it there. The tree fed the Kermes scale insects, which are small bugs that live on plants. Those insects gave a red dye called crimson, which is a deep red colour.
Mediterranean cypress and Cretan maple woodlands grow at high elevations on Crete. Water shapes the plant list as well as height does. Oriental plane trees grow naturally by rivers, beside alder, willow and poplar. A walker on an Imbros Gorge hike can use both clues, height and water, to name a tree.
- Mediterranean cypress: It is a conifer, a cone-bearing tree, growing up to 35 metres tall with a cone-shaped crown.
- Oriental plane: This tree can grow to 30 metres or more, which is a great height for a tree.
- Thorny cushion scrublands: Low bushland covers the highest peaks, above the height where trees stop growing, at 1600 to 1800 metres.
Cretan maple grows at elevations from 300 to 1,700 metres. That is a wide range of heights for one kind of tree. Reading tree names turns an Imbros Gorge hike into a lesson in how plants follow the land.
Which birds and animals live near an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike passes through mountain country linked with the kri-kri, a cliff-climbing mountain animal. Three big birds share it: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture and the golden eagle. A gorge is a deep, narrow valley with steep rock walls.
The kri-kri lives in the White Mountains. That mountain home also hosts another 14 endemic animal species. Endemic means a species lives naturally in one region of the world and nowhere else. A walker planning an Imbros Gorge hike can learn about these animals first, before the walk begins.
By 1960 the kri-kri population stood below 200 animals, and the species was under threat. In World War II, the kri-kri was the only meat available to mountain guerillas under German occupation. Guerillas are fighters who work in small groups, not in a large army. Occupation means that a foreign army controls the land.
Nearly 1000 Eurasian griffon vultures live in Greece. A griffon vulture is 93–122 cm long. Its wingspan, which is the distance from one wingtip to the other, measures 2.3–2.8 m. A walker on an Imbros Gorge hike can scan the sky for a bird with wings that wide. No sighting is ever certain.
- Griffon vulture: Baits laced with poison, set out by people, are the main cause of its rapid decline.
- Bearded vulture: It is the only known vertebrate, an animal with a backbone, whose diet is 70–90% bone.
- Lammergeier: The name comes from the German word Lämmergeier, which means lamb-vulture.
In flight, the bearded vulture shows long, narrow wings and a long, wedge-shaped tail. One golden eagle subspecies, a local type of the species, occurs on the island of Crete. Knowing these shapes and names gives an Imbros Gorge hike more to notice.
What history lies behind an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike has a long story of defiance behind it. Hora Sfakion is known as a centre of resistance against the occupying Venetians and Ottomans. Resistance means standing against rulers. The same story holds an uprising and a wartime escape.
Ioannis Vlachos was born in Anopolis, a village in Sfakia. Sfakia was then a semi-autonomous region of Crete, meaning it was partly self-governing. His education earned him the nickname Daskalogiannis, which comes from Daskalos, meaning teacher. Walkers who plan an Imbros Gorge hike can start the story with that name.
The uprising began on 25 March 1770, with rebel attacks on Kydonia, Apokoronas and Agios Vasilios. The Russian fleet, meaning a group of warships under Count Orlov, did not sail for Crete. That left the revolt to rely on itself, so the rebels had no help from that fleet.
The rebels minted their own coins, or made their own money, in a cave near Hora Sfakion. They also suffered a crushing defeat on the Krapi plateau, a high flat area. The rebels took refuge in the high mountains. This chapter is part of the background to an Imbros Gorge hike.
- Execution: Daskalogiannis was put to death on 17 June 1771, in full public view.
- Evacuation: Cruisers and destroyers, both types of warship, withdrew about 6,000 men from Sfakia in 1941.
- Escape: On the night of the 31st, locals helped soldiers from Australia and New Zealand get away from Sfakia.
On 1 June, the remaining 5,000 defenders at Sfakia surrendered, which means they gave up the fight. A gorge is a deep, narrow valley with steep sides. That long record of defiance is the story that stands behind an Imbros Gorge hike today.
What questions come up about an Imbros Gorge hike?
An Imbros Gorge hike is a walk through a gorge, a narrow valley with steep rock walls. It raises four questions. Two concern Chania International Airport and the weather in April, July and October. The other two concern the Aradena Gorge and the island of Gavdos.
Which airport serves an Imbros Gorge hike?
The airport in question is Chania International Airport. Its runway, labelled 11L/29R, is 3,347 metres long. The terminal is planned to handle 1.35 million passengers per year, which is its design capacity. Civil flights, meaning non-military flights, moved to the military airport of Souda in 1959.
Which season suits an Imbros Gorge hike?
At the Gavdos weather station, the April daytime top temperature averages 20.1 °C, with 12.3 millimetres of rain. At the Gavdos weather station, July’s top averages 32.4 °C, with 0.0 millimetres of rain. At the Gavdos weather station, October’s top averages 25.2 °C, with 48.6 millimetres of rain.
Which other gorge lies beside an Imbros Gorge hike?
Aradena Gorge lies west of Aradaina village and is around 100 metres deep. An iron bridge, 70 metres long, crosses the Aradena gorge. The gorge separates the village of Aradena from the Anopolis Plateau, a high and flat stretch of land.
Which island lies south of an Imbros Gorge hike?
The island of Gavdos lies 48 kilometres south of Chora Sfakion. The Gavdos municipality, meaning its local council area, covers 32.424 square kilometres, including the small island of Gavdopoula. Gavdos is the southernmost island in Greece and Europe, meaning the farthest south of them all.