Lepida Waterfall – Megalo Livadi

From Paranesti, following the previous day’s route, we reach Dipotama again. After four kilometers on a good passable forest road in a North-East direction, we stop where the path leading to the Lepida waterfall begins.
The path, properly shaped, descends between beech and oak trees, while its lower parts are surrounded by maples, elms and lindens that offer, depending on the season, shade, fragrance or color. If the route is exciting, the sight of the waterfall, whose sound can be heard from above, is an amazing visual experience. The waters fall from a height of about thirty meters and the staggered arrangement of the rocks creates impressive effects during their fall. Nature in moments of great inspiration literally takes our breath away! Another kilometer on the same dirt road and another three hundred meters of hiking will bring us to a second waterfall, much smaller, but also spectacular.
The access to this waterfall, which is formed by the waters of the same stream as that of Lepida (Tsoukali stream), is more difficult, because the path ends in shards that require great care to descend. Three kilometers from the small waterfall is the forest construction site of Lepida, the operational center of all forestry activities in the area. From this position, the view is panoramic: we see the villages of Silli and Prasinada towering over the serpentine flow of the Arkudoremos, while in the background the northern foothills of the Falakros and Pangaios mountain ranges can be seen.

From the forest construction site we are now heading towards Megalo Livadi (better known by its old name “Ulou Yaila”). To get there we have two options: a) To continue on the same road that we have followed so far and driving in a North direction to enter Megalo Livadi. b) Return to the intersection located a few hundred meters before the construction site and follow its eastern fork. The route is parallel to the Arkudoremos ravine and runs through a constantly changing landscape. The beech forests are succeeded by mixed broadleaf forests, which in turn give way to lush green meadows, where the yellow Rhodope lily and the Ganiatsa viola are endemic. Then we again enter mixed beech and pine forests and as we complete fourteen kilometers from the Lepida construction site, the first spruce trees with their characteristic hanging branches begin to appear.

At this point, about two kilometers before entering Megalo Livadi, we hear from the depth of the ravine the sound of water falling from above. The sound comes from the waterfall of the Kamba stream (also known as the waterfall of the Dark stream). It adorns a typical Central European landscape with theorata trees, spruces, firs and beeches. Its waters have sculpted the rock over which they flow in a wondrous manner. There is no path leading to the waterfall and the access is relatively difficult. Arriving at Megalo Livadi (altitude 1400 meters) one feels that one is alive in an earthly corner of paradise.
Especially in spring or early summer (May and June) the beauty of the landscape is beyond description. An Orgasm of Vegetation, colors, sounds, smells… Wildflowers of all kinds (among them some rare ones, such as digitalis, thalictra, polygona, dewsera and eriophoria) create colonies of color in the blinding green that looks like thick flocata. Clumps of forest pine close the horizon all around and the blue of the sky seems to be lowering… A crystal clear stream (the Kamba stream), with completely flat banks, crosses the meadow with continuous streams silently. Animals large and small complete the summer scenery, making the Great Meadow an actual version of some unreal Bucolic landscape, like those described by Theocritus in Idylls…

Three kilometers North-East of the point from where we enter Megalo Livadi the road takes us through pine forests to a protected active acid peatland. It is a hollow, of small extent and depth, with stagnant water covered by low vegetation of mosses and other plants. The accumulated peat over thousands of years is for scientists a reservoir of information related to the evolution of vegetation. This is also the reason why the European Union has placed acid peatlands under protection status as priority habitats. From the bog, we continue our way in a southerly direction and, after passing by the ponds of the area and various springs, we return (after ten kilometers) to the construction site of Lepidas, having completed a circular route. For our return to Paranesti, however, we can follow an alternative route.
Instead of turning around at the construction site of Lepida, four kilometers after the peat bog, we turn right and heading west we pass into the adjacent forest complex of Stamna (Bartakova). From there we can head either to Prasinada (south direction) or to the paved country road (west direction) which is twenty-five kilometers away. In both cases the route is long and unmarked but impresses with the changes in its landscape.