Mount Smolikas rises to 2,637 metres. It is the highest mountain of the Pindus range and the second-highest in Greece, after Mount Olympus. It stands in the north of Epirus, about 15 kilometres north-east of the town of Konitsa. The valley of the Aoos River runs along its southern side and separates it from Mount Tymfi. Mount Grammos is to the north-west and Mount Vasilitsa to the south-east. The streams of the northern side flow to the Sarantaporos river.

Smolikas is made of ophiolite, a dark rock that gives the ground a red colour in places. During the ice ages, glaciers filled the valleys of its northern and eastern sides, and the last of them melted about 11,500 years ago. Besides the main summit, the peak of Mosia also passes 2,500 metres. Above 2,000 metres the ground is open grass and rock.

People come to Smolikas for the climb to the summit on foot. The usual route starts at the village of Palioseli, at about 1,100 metres. It follows the national trail O3 through forest to the mountain refuge at Nane, then climbs a long ridge to the lake of Drakolimni and turns east to the summit. The climb takes about six hours. It needs no climbing skill, but it is long. Two more marked routes of about the same length start at the villages of Pades and Agia Paraskevi and meet the first one near the lake. From the village of Samarina, on the eastern side, a longer route crosses the peak of Mosia. It has sections of scrambling on rock.

The climb can be done in two days, with a night at the refuge. From there the lake is about an hour and a half away, and the summit about the same again. In late winter and spring, the snow on the high slopes draws ski mountaineers.

The best-known place on the mountain is Drakolimni, the Dragon Lake. It lies at about 2,150 metres on a shoulder below the summit, in open grassland, and its outline looks a little like a heart. The ground around it is red, from the rock of the mountain. Alpine newts live in its water, and wild orchids grow near it. Local stories say that a dragon lived in the lake.

Lower down, the slopes are covered with forest. Black pine and beech grow on the lower ground, and higher up stand old Bosnian pines, a tree of the high Balkan mountains that people here call robolo. Brown bears and wolves live in these forests. Smolikas belongs to the Northern Pindos National Park and to the Natura 2000 network.

The villages of Smolikas are small, and most of them stand at more than 1,000 metres. On the southern side, above the valley of the Aoos River, Palioseli is the usual starting point for the mountain. Its church of Agia Paraskevi, built in 1864, leans to one side because the ground under it has moved. Pades, a little higher, has only a few people in winter. It has two old churches, one of them with wall paintings, and old watermills. The village of Agia Paraskevi, on the northern side, is the third starting point for the summit.

On the eastern side, in the area of Grevena, Samarina stands at about 1,550 metres. It is a stone-built village of the Vlachs, shepherds who for centuries moved their flocks between the mountains and the plains.