Tackling the E4

Official io Outsider and former Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year had an idea to run/hike another section of the 10,000+km E4 trail in Europe. The E4 begins in Tarifa, Andalusia, and traverses countries including Spain, France, Switzerland and Romania before ending in Greece. As someone who walks the walk, and runs the run, (in his io, of course!), Lloyd didn’t just dream about it or talk about it. He went and did it! This is his story.

The mission: When I was 40, I set out to run across the island of Crete in Greece on the E4 trail. Crete is the last section of the E4 trail. It's a very rugged and wild island in Greece with over 365 gorges and 50+ peaks over 2,000m in elevation. My plan was to run and hike it in three sections. I did the first 180km in four days for my 40th birthday. This year I hiked and ran 140km with my 15 year old son in five days. When I'm 50 in two years, I'd like to complete the final phase of my 500km adventure. On this particular trip, I started where I left off eight years ago, and headed for the highest peak in Crete, Mt Psiloritis (2456m). 

Even in late April it still had snow on top. We had a 1,500m ascent and 2,000m descent on the day we hiked to the summit in our io! From the top, you can see both the Libyan Sea and Mediterranean Sea which is pretty incredible. The snow was also tainted a red/brown colour from a recent Saharan red dust storm that affected much of Greece.

My son and I have done a few adventures together now: We've unicycled 270km from the sea to the summit of Australia's highest mountain (Eden to Mt Kosciuszko). My son was only 11 years old at the time! And last year we rode our bikes across the South Island of New Zealand, but this was our first trail adventure together. He's 15 years old now and really interested in sports and physical challenges. This adventure was an awesome experience for him. He is half Greek and was born in Greece, so it's really nice for him to explore this part of the world together.

The highlight of this trip was reaching the summit of Mt Psiloritis together. It was a nice day in the village below (low 20's, sunny and no wind). It was a very different story on the summit. We had our io hiking socks and base layers on for the hike. The wind at the summit was crazy! The place we stayed before the hike up was called, Windy Place....now we know why! Hiking through the Rouvas Gorge was also spectacular.

Our io performed exceptionally well. We carry all our gear on these adventures, so we had everything we needed for six days (excluding our food - we ate at amazing Greek Tavernas along the way which was another highlight - the food in Crete is exceptional). I took two io shirts, two pairs of io socks, one io zip up long sleeve shirt. 

The socks are incredibly comfortable. No blisters or other foot issues, which given the terrain is pretty remarkable. It's extremely rocky and steep in Crete. We did almost 6km of vertical in our five days. The shirts were great on the ascents; it was obviously hard sweaty work climbing, but then they'd dry super quick and wick moisture away from the skin so we didn't freeze in the wind. At night we'd air the socks and shirts out and switch to the second set the next day. We kept alternating like that and by day six we still smelt OK - unless the person sitting next to us on the airplane back to Athens was just being polite! 

I think my son was pleasantly surprised by the socks. He's always hearing me banging on about io to people but hadn't tried the gear himself until this trip. Thank you to io for the support and for supplying some of our gear. I'm very proud to be an io Outsider :)