Mount Helmos: this road is not for timid drivers

Mount Helmos is a high mountain peak at an elevation of 2.340m (7,677ft) above the sea level, located in the Northern Peloponnese, on southern Greece. It's one of the highest roads of the country.

Mount Helmos

The road to the summit, also known as Mount Chelmos, is extreme. It’s mostly unpaved, extremely narrow (impassable for 2 cars at the same time) and very steep. This is a maintained road where a high clearance 2WD vehicle is able to travel safely at low speeds on long dry straight-of-ways, without losing control due to wash boarding, ruts, or dips. It's normal for your palms to sweat looking at those photos, imagine what it must have been like before the barriers.  But the tiny brick wall at the edge of the road is not going to stop your vehicle from going over. The summit is home to an observatory called Helmos Observatory, National Observatory of Athens. It’s considered one of the darkest locations in Europe: at that altitude, the telescope remains free of light pollution emanating from the lowlands.

Starting at Epar.Od. Sarantapichou-Idaton Stigos road, the ascent is 9.5 km long. Over this distance, the elevation gain is 710 meters. The average percentage is 7.47 % but the maximum slope is 10 %. 
Pic&video: Kos Douk