JOURNEY TO THE KAÇKARS

The Kaçkar Mountains rise behind Rize and Hopa on Turkey's eastern Black Sea coast. With their glaciers, sapphire blue lakes, thick forests, waterfalls, streams - sometimes gushing exuberantly, sometimes trickling like tears, astounding variety of flowers and plants, wolves, wild boar, ibex, bears, jackals and deer, the Kaçkar mountains are a place to experience nature at its most spectacular. The rang's highest peaks are the Altiparmak (3418 m), Kavron (3972 m) and Verçenik (3710 m).
Verçenik was the area where we were heading for. We set out from the town of Pazar for Verçenik Yayla, yayla being the name for the grassy alpine pastures. Local people told us that while the mountains were innocent enough in summer, in winter they were harsh and pitiless. The high pastures are inhabited only in summer when farming families move up with their flocks from Pazar, where they spend the winter months looking forward to the time when they will be reunited with their beautiful mountains.

Five hours later we arrived at Verçenik Yayla, encircled by high, mist shrouded mountains. The air was damp and the sky heavy with rain clouds. These were the smoky mountains which feature so frequently in Turkish folk songs, and now we understood why. They were breathtakingly beautiful, in a tapestry of innumerable gentle colours. We were equally delighted by the open-hearted ingenuous personality of the Black Sea people, amongst whom we immediately felt at home.
That first night we lay outside our tents with a sense of anticipation at a holiday just beginning, and gazed up at the sky which was a mass of winking stars.

The next morning we rose at 6. Daybreak came earlier here than further west. It was still hazy, but the early light contained a promise of warmth to come. It was time to set out. Our route to the slopes of Verçenik took us past Lake Kapili, where we stopped to rest for while.

Our second stop was beneath the summit, and here we drank in the extraordinary view of mountain ranges stretching out in every direction as far as the eye could see. This was nature at its most impressive and unadorned. Our climb had proceeded slowly, hampered by thick mist, precipices and steep cliffs. All along the way were intersecting valleys, sometimes filled with a sea of cloud stretching beneath our feet and seeming as if it might sweep us away like a magic carpet.

The last haul to the peak caused us some anxious moments, but finally we were on the summit and the difficulties of the journey were instantaneously forgotten, to be replaced by a sense of exhilaration. Whether the clouds decide to lift at that crucial moment is a matter of chance. If you are lucky you will be treated to a view both magical and disquieting in its vastness. We recorded our feelings in the summit book: 'Being on the Verneçik peak of Kaçkar is like a zenith of the pleasures life has to offer.'

Exhaustion penetrated every part of our bodies, and clouds at our side, filled with a sense of fulfilment, we descended. We were to camp that night at Lake Sulak. If you go, remember to take your swimsuits so that if the weather is sunny, you can enjoy a refreshing swim in its cool waters. Our camping sight looked over lakes and mountain peaks to one side, and on the other into an enchantingly beautiful valley. So long as there is no mist and cloud, this spot is perfect for photographing the peak you have just climbed. In the shifting mist mountain peaks become visible for a moment before being lost to view again, making it impossible to see where one ends and the other begins.

Next we made for Çiçekli Yayla, where at the part known as Basyayla we set up our tents on the shore of Lake Çiçekli. If you get up early enough in the morning you can see the sea of cloud arriving to settle between the mountains.

Everyone we met welcomed us with friendly warmth, began by asking us where we had come from, and insisted on inviting us into their houses for food and refreshments. With them time seems to fly past, and you are roused from an animated conversation to find that the local speciality, mihlama (eggs with spinach or chard), has been cooked, and you are being urged to share it with them. A cup of sincerity and affection, and a glass of hot tea, and all your weariness dissolves away. We were determined to see Haçevanak Yayla, described as one of the loveliest in this region. Here there are only a few mountain huts, whose inhabitants told us that each year fewer people spend the summer on the pastures.

Past Hodiçur and we were now approaching the border of Erzurum province. Here we visited a wildly plunging waterfall, swollen by the melting snows on the heights. It infected us with its exhilaration, passion and rebellious spirit.

As the roaring of the water faded away behind us, we heard the cheerful shouts of children on Davali Yayla. Here again we were invited inside and offered meals of local dishes, before retiring to our tents for the night. When we awoke the following morning it was to the sound of the children already up playing.

When they saw us they besieged us with requests to be photographed. On this occasion we did not have the time, but if you do then before leaving the Kaçkar take the opportunity to visit Turkey's highest lake, the Kaçkar Büyük Deniz Gölü.

This spectacularly beautiful, tranquil lake lies at an altitude of 3370 m. Tinted red in the last rays of the setting sun the tiny islands in the lake look like freshly opened flowers. And when the last light has faded and the moon rises in the black firmament, no adequate description has yet been found for the sight of the lake in the moonlight. We continued on our way.

We were now at the border between Erzurum and Artvin. Reluctant as we were it was time to leave the Kaçkar. We were already longing to rush back here again, to climb the mountains, to dance with the clouds, listen to the song of green, and to feel life at its keenest in the plunging waterfalls.

* Basak Öztoprak is a journalist

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