Chania: residents opened the Samaria Gorge

The Samaria Gorge in Chania remained closed on Thursday, 24 September 2026, as the Organization for the Natural Environment and Climate Change (OIFYKA—the protected-areas management agency), responsible for its management, decided not to allow visitor entry due to a forecast of heavy rainfall and/or storms. According to the relevant information, the expected rainfall was calculated at 11.5 millimetres, a value above the safety threshold applied to keep the gorge open to the public. That same day, however, residents of Omalos and Agia Roumeli, the two settlements at either end of the trail, opened the gorge gates themselves in protest, placing protest signs at the entrance.

OIFYKA’s decision was based on a weather forecast that, according to reports, exceeded the rainfall threshold above which passage through the gorge is considered dangerous due to the risk of sudden rises in water levels in the riverbed. For their part, residents argued that the weather that day was suitable for hiking and that severe weather forecasts leading to gorge closures repeatedly fail to materialize in practice. A sign placed at the entrance and broadcast by ERT read in capitals: “THE GORGE IS OPEN!!! BY RESIDENTS IN PROTEST OF REPEATED CLOSURES WITHOUT REASON!!!”. This message reflects the residents’ position that the gorge closures happen, in their view, without adequate justification in relation to actual weather conditions on the ground.

The Samaria Gorge, within the White Mountains, is one of the most popular hiking trails in the country, starting at Omalos and ending at Agia Roumeli on the Libyan Sea. Each closure of the trail has immediate impact both on visitors who have planned to hike it and on the local economy of the two settlements, which, particularly the isolated Agia Roumeli, depend heavily on hiker passage. The residents’ action to open the gates themselves highlights the tension between the need to ensure visitor safety and the daily reality of local professionals, for whom each lost day of gorge operation translates to lost income during the tourist season.

The incident raises more questions than it answers. It has not been clarified who bears responsibility should a visitor enter the gorge through gates opened by residents rather than by the competent authority, nor how decision-making authority is delineated for opening or closing the trail when the local community’s assessment differs from that of OIFYKA. Until the time of writing, according to available reports, OIFYKA had not issued a public response to the residents’ opening of the gates. The question of the criteria on which the decision to close is based remains thus unresolved, as the two sides hold differing interpretations of the same weather forecast, pending any further developments in Crete.