Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures

Jason König
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Welcome to the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures podcast! The aim of the podcast is to bring to light new stories and new perspectives on mountain landscapes and mountain communities around the world, with help from a wide range of expert guests. The podcast showcases exciting new academic research on mountain history, and work by creative practitioners engaging with mountain landscapes in a range of different media.

  1. Sep 10

    Seven Summits with Vanessa Archontidou

    In this episode Jason König interviews Vanessa Archontidou. Vanessa is a mountaineer and explorer. She was a member of the first female Greek team to reach the summit of Everest, in 2019, and she has climbed the Seven Summits, the highest mountain on all seven continents. Side by side with her mountaineering career, she is an EU Climate Pact Ambassador, and founder of the organisation AWomanCanBe and the outdoor guiding company Up&out. We start by talking about Vanessa’s first experience of hiking, on Mount Oligyrtos in the Peloponnese, about the training that followed on from that, and about what it’s like to discover that your body has an aptitude for high-altitude climbing. Vanessa tells the story of the Seven Summits project – starting from Kilimanjaro, encompassing the Everest ascent, and  finishing on the summit of Mount Vinson in Antarctica – and discusses her plans for a North Pole expedition. We discuss the way in which mountains provide powerful vehicles for telling stories about climate change, and the way in which Vanessa’s work with female porters in the mountains in Africa helped to inspire her charity, AWomanCanBe, which aims to 'empower women to lead the way in protecting our planet and making the world better and fairer'. Finally we return to Greece, and to the question of what sustainable mountain tourism should look like.  This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Seven Summits with Vanessa Archontidou

  2. Aug 27

    Boulouki with Ionas Sklavounos and Marilena Mela

    In this episode Jason König and Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou interview Ionas Sklavounos and Marilena Mela about the work of Boulouki. Boulouki is a collective that studies and transmits traditional building crafts as an active and sustainable body of knowledge, through educational and participatory projects, many of them in mountain areas in Greece. It brings together architects, engineers, craftspeople, researchers, heritage professionals, creators, and local communities who co-shape its work. We talk about the beginnings of Boulouki, which was co-founded by Ionas in 2018, and the ideals that lie behind it, focused on co-production with mountain and island communities, and on the combination of environmental preservation with cultural heritage restoration.  We then talk about some of Bouolouki’s recent projects, which have included the Kalderimi x2 project that involved the rebuilding of the old pathway that leads to the historical Bridge of Plaka, the Frasta School project, which restored the primary school at the village of Frasta in Tzoumerka, the Shelters project, which involved building a wood-fired oven and a treehouse at a pair of mountain refuges, at Melissourgoi and Pramanta, and the Reappearances project, which combined a practical workshop and a participatory restoration of an old cobbled pathway in Aristi in the Zagori region. Finally we discuss some of the challenges facing the mountain communities of Greece, but also some of the ways in which Boulouki’s work is making a difference, for example by forging new alliances, and creating opportunities for empowering dialogue between external experts and local communities. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Boulouki with Ionas Sklavounos and Marilena Mela

  3. Jul 3

    Trekking Hellas with Stefanos Sidiropoulos

    In this episode Jason König and Maria Christodoulou interview Stefanos Sidiropoulos about his work running the Bafi Refuge on Mount Parnitha and the outdoor company Trekking Hellas, and about why it matters to get more young people into the mountains. Stefanos talks about the 20th-century history of the Bafi refuge, and about his own experience of taking on the lease of the refuge in 2004, which involved living up on the mountain full time, initially with very few visitors, but then with a huge increase over recent years. He talks about the wildfires of 2007, and about his experience of working as a fireman. We discuss Stefanos’ favourite routes on the more than 250 km of recorded trails on Mount Parnitha, and then his work on constructing the first ever mountain trail in Greece for people with disabilities. In the second half we talk about Stefanos’ experience of running Trekking Hellas, and his vision for bringing more young people from all backgrounds into the mountains of Greece. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Trekking Hellas with Stefanos Sidiropoulos

  4. Jun 24

    Excavating Mount Lykaion with David Gilman Romano

    In this episode Jason König interviews David Gilman Romano, from the University of Arizona, about his many years of archaeological research on Mount Lykaion in Arkadia. We start by discussing David’s first visit to Mount Lykaion, in 1978. David sketches out the mythological importance of the site, which was claimed as one of the birthplaces of Zeus, its importance for Arcadian identity in antiquity, and its athletic significance, as the venue for the festival of the Lykaia which was held high up on the mountainside. David then describes the development of the Mount Lykaion Excavation and Survey project, which has been underway since 2004, and summarises some of the most important finds from the site, including evidence for continuous use of the space of the summit altar back to the Neolithic period. In the second half we turn to the creation of the Parrhasian Heritage Park in the area around Mount Lykaion, which has involved decades of collaboration between archaeologists and local communities, and the creation of a series of hiking trails. David describes his favourite trail, the Trail of Pan. Finally we talk about some of the ways in which archaeology can make a difference to mountain regions struggling with depopulation. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Excavating Mount Lykaion with David Gilman Romano

  5. Jun 17

    Anavasi with Penelope Matsouka

    In this episode Jason König interviews Penelope Matsouka, co-founder of Anavasi, about map-making in the mountains of Greece.  We start by talking about Penelope’s experience of the mountains as a student, and about the first steps in setting up Anavasi, which has had a transformative impact on the accessibility of the mountains of Greece over the last few decades. She discusses the past and future challenges for cartography, including the inaccessible and incomplete military maps which were the only option available before Anavasi, the early days of working with GPS and GIS, the hard work of walking along mountain paths with children in tow, and the importance of maintaining map-reading literacy in the future, in an age where we are more and more dependent on ‘following a dot on a screen’. Penelope talks about her favourite mountains in Greece, especially Mount Olympus, and about the extraordinary experience of photographing Olympus from the air, after many years of walking backwards and forwards over the paths. We discuss Penelope’s experience of climbing outside Greece, in the Alps and the Himalayas, and also her love of the small islands of Greece. Finally Penelope offers some thoughts on the challenges and possible solutions for mountain regions in Greece faced with depopulation: ‘When there are no people living in the mountains, no one is present to defend them. And then those who wish to exploit them, they appear, and they are indifferent to their beauty and to the sustainability of the resources … Hikers and mountaineers are the custodians of the mountains. So the priority for the future is to create the conditions that will allow more and more people to get to know the mountains’. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Anavasi with Penelope Matsouka

  6. May 27

    The Greek Herbalist with Maria Christodoulou

    In this episode Jason König interviews Maria Christodoulou about her work as a herbalist and about the mountain plants of Greece. Maria is a clinical herbalist. She runs ancient herbal medicine courses and herbal tours around Greece. Her book Herbs of Greece: Four Seasons of Ancient Plants for Modern Health is forthcoming with Timber Press in 2027. You can see more about Maria's work at her website. We talk first about Maria's experience of moving to Greece as an adult, encountering a landscape she had heard about from a distance throughout her childhood. Maria then talks about the educational goals at the heart of her work as The Greek Herbalist, and her interest in the continuities between ancient and modern botanical knowledge. She gives us a glimpse of the research processes involved in her forthcoming book, which has involved immersing herself in the work of the ancient medical writer Dioscorides and travelling around Greece to find photos of all fifty of her plants. Maria then offers two case studies from the mountains, discussing the physiological effects and cultural significance of hellebore and mountain tea, and their role in ancient scientific writing. Finally Maria offers some reflections on the threats facing the botanical heritage of the Greek mountains, from over-development, and on why education matters for helping people to understand and protect these places. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    The Greek Herbalist with Maria Christodoulou

  7. May 20

    Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou

    In this episode Jason König interviews Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou about his work as a landscape archaeologist in the mountainous region of Zagori in northwest Greece. Faidon is Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computational Archaeology Research Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, working on a project entitled ‘Under the Forest’. His 2022 book, The Early Modern Zagori of Northwest Greece offers a very wide-ranging reassessment of the landscape archaeology of the region in the Ottoman period and beyond, from the 15th-20th century.   Faidon talks first about his family connections with Zagori and his experience of visiting there in summer holidays as a child. We discuss Faidon’s book on early modern Zagori, work on uncovering local archives in the villages of Zagori, and also his collaborations with the Boulouki Collective on a series of architecture projects in the region. We then we turn to Faidon’s current project, ‘Under the Forest’, which aims to shed new light on the archaeological heritage that is increasingly concealed by afforestation. Faidon describes the ‘remote sensing’ archaeological techniques that allow him to bring that heritage to life, and talks about the tradition of giving special protection to ‘sacred forests’ in the Ottoman period. We talk about Faidon’s work on the region’s successful UNESCO world heritage bid, before turning finally to some of the challenges facing local communities in the mountains of northern Greece, including wildfires and depopulation. Faidon offers some closing reflection on ways in which the creation of cultural trails through the landscape can help with tourist development. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou

  8. May 13

    Lifelines with Julian Hoffman

    In this episode Jason König interviews Julian Hoffman about living in the mountainous region of Prespa in northern Greece, and about his latest project on the Aoos river.  Julian is the prize-winning author of The Small Heart of Things (2012), Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places(2019), and most recently Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece (2025), which tells the story of his move to Prespa, where he has lived for the last two decades. We start by talking about how Julian’s fascination with mountains first developed on a trip to the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Julian then gives us a sketch of the Prespa region, with its ancient lakes ringed by mountains, stretching across the borders between Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. He describes the hospitality he and his wife received when they moved there from London, the changing relationships between the local population and the mountain landscapes they live close to, and the animals and especially the birds that are such a powerful presence in the experiences he describes in Lifelines.  In the second half we discuss the Aoos/Vjosa river, the last surviving large, free-flowing river in Europe, which runs through northern Greece and Albania. We talk about the amazing variety and environmental richness of the waterways across the whole Aoos river basin, and Julian describes a visit to the Sarantaporos (a tributary of the Aoos) in January 2026 to see the river in flood. Finally we discuss the challenges facing the region – including not just depopulation and the effects of climate change, but also the policy of siting wind turbines in mountain landscapes that are ‘largely pristine, biologically alive, and hugely ecologically important’. We also talk about hope for the future, especially Prespa’s character as a place that can transcend borders and national differences.  This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

    Lifelines with Julian Hoffman
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Welcome to the Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures podcast! The aim of the podcast is to bring to light new stories and new perspectives on mountain landscapes and mountain communities around the world, with help from a wide range of expert guests. The podcast showcases exciting new academic research on mountain history, and work by creative practitioners engaging with mountain landscapes in a range of different media.

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