The extremely difficult operation to recover and transport the four mountaineers who lost their lives in the Vardousia Mountains was completed on Saturday evening. The bodies were transferred to Amfissa General Hospital, while today they are expected to be transported to the Athens Forensic Service for autopsy. The forensic examination will be conducted urgently today, despite being Sunday, due to the severity of the case. Official findings are expected in the coming period.
The tragedy in the Vardousia Mountains is considered one of the most serious mountaineering accidents of recent decades in Greece, as the Vardousia range is considered particularly dangerous during winter months. The danger is not due to altitude, but to the steep morphology, vertical slopes and unstable snow, which leave no margin for error even for experienced mountaineers. “To clarify what has been heard, there was never a snowstorm or fog. The weather was good, but conditions were not suitable for ascending to the summit,” said a friend of mountaineer Giorgos Domalis, who notified authorities about finding the climbers. According to him, in the previous days the summit had very low temperatures and frozen terrain, while the previous evening it had snowed, creating conditions that favor the possibility of avalanche.
At the same time, he clarified that contrary to what was said in recent days, he was not the fifth member of the group and was never supposed to join this particular ascent due to work commitments. “I was never the fifth person. I hadn’t agreed with the guys to climb and suddenly told them I wouldn’t go. I would never climb during the holidays because of my work, I would have climbed 10 days later, around Epiphany. From the beginning I wasn’t going to go.”
“I knew they were going to climb and on the day of the ascent I called them to wish them well. There was no signal, I called them a second time and there was still no signal. Then Giorgos’s partner called me and told me the same thing again. When the time passed 5:00 PM and because I know the terrain, the weather conditions were not those under which someone should approach the summit, that’s when I got worried and realized that something had gone very wrong. That’s when I started the process of mobilizing the authorities to begin the search procedure.”
“To rule out what has been said, there was never a snowstorm and fog. The weather was perfect, it’s just that conditions weren’t such for someone to climb to the summit. In the previous days there were very low temperatures at the summit and the terrain had frozen. The previous evening it had snowed, the snow was fresh and that’s a good precondition for an avalanche to occur.
When asked if it was reckless to climb the mountain, he replied: “I wouldn’t call the climbing venture so reckless, it’s just that if I were there I wouldn’t approach the summit because of those conditions.”
Finally, Giorgos Domalis’s friend stated: “On the mountain, because we are sometimes carried away by adrenaline, it hides dangers.”
The timeline of the Vardousia Mountains tragedy
The tragedy unfolded in minimal time, without leaving room for reaction, as rescuers found the victims buried under snow and at a short distance from each other, an element that shows everything happened suddenly. The recovery and airlift operation was completed late in the afternoon with the assistance of a helicopter. According to an announcement from the Fire Service, the bodies were transferred to the “Kirra” position in Itea, where they were received by EKAB ambulances.
The four-member group had started on Christmas morning from Athanasios Diakos village with destination the Korakas summit. Weather conditions were initially characterized as good, however the area had fresh and unstable snow, combined with intense terrain and high altitude, factors that proved fatal.
