Читать книгу The High Mountains of Crete. The White Mountains, Psiloritis and Lassithi Mountains онлайн

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The E4 is waymarked with aluminium yellow and black poles supplemented in places with diamond-shaped paint-enamelled aluminium signs nailed to trees, or simply with paint-marked rocks, again in yellow and black. Unfortunately, maintenance is patchy. Winter storms strip or destroy the poles, shotgun owners use them as targets, souvenir hunters remove the signs, and sheep and goats tramp over the painted rocks. Positioning trail markers needs a practised understanding of sightlines, and of other people’s thought processes, so that getting it exactly right is not easy. Even where sightlines have been carefully considered, route choices at possible path junctions may still be ‘left open’. Relying on the waymarks to show you the route can be stressful and frustrating, although in some places it is difficult to manage without them. Even so, try not to be de-skilled by the E4! With your contour map, compass and altimeter – and perhaps GPS (with the Anavasi maps) – take time to consider the lie of the land, looking for likely footpath or mule track routes, as you would have done before the E4 Trail was made. Hopefully, when it appears, a marker will come as welcome confirmation that you have got it right.