Report on the campaign to Kachkar

Kaçkar is a beautiful and relatively difficult mountain in northern Turkey (near the Black Sea, Trabzon). So far it is little known among our tourists, but the area is cool and its popularity will grow. The remains of an ancient volcano rise almost 4,000 meters above sea level, sharp rocks cut through the veil of clouds creeping from the sea, mountain lakes preserve the memory of departed glaciers... harsh romance for true adventure lovers.

Day 1. Border

Most of the group gathered in Georgia, in Batumi. Firstly, tickets there were cheaper, and secondly, two of us went on the trek through Svaneti right before Kachkar.

To get to Turkey comfortably, we hired an individual minibus rather than taking a regular bus. We planned to leave at dawn, but it didn’t work out - the flight on which the participants of the trek were arriving from Kyiv was thoroughly delayed. As a result, we left Batumi only around 10 am... and within 30 minutes we were at the Turkish border in Sarpi. We get out of the bus and go on foot to border control.

On the way we see a greed attraction at a border gas station. Due to the significant difference in prices, Turks do not just go to Georgia for gasoline. At the gas station, they use a special wood pump to tilt the car and fill the tanks to the very top.

We crossed the border in 40 minutes. Not bad for my taste.

At noon the bus dropped us off in the coastal town of Pazar (nothing interesting except tea plantations). Here we met with Pasha, who was flying through Trabzon and getting to Pazar in the same 2 hours as it took us from Batumi.

We have lunch and at about 14:00 we take the bus to Çamliemşin. There we take a taxi.

On the way we make a stop at the Zilkale fortress. It is very tiny, but wildly picturesque.

At 15:40 we finally disembark at the beginning of the “trail”. In fact, almost the entire first day you have to walk on a dirt road, but these are minor things - you finally want to warm up.

Before setting out on the route, we look into the shop at the local boarding house - before merging with nature, we need to take the last sip of consumer civilization.

Finally we go. The road is hidden in a shady canyon, next to a river and cool air. After the stifling heat of Adjara, this is simply paradise.

We pass the first arched bridge. These look great in photos with milk rivers (long exposure on a tripod). But I want to move forward and amateur photography is put off.

We pass the upper border of the forest. The next time we will see normal Christmas trees (and the forest in general) will only be in a week. There is no firewood on the route...

We stop for the night between the villages of Kalekoy and Bash-yayla. There is no connection, there is not enough water.

Day 2. Kale Pass.

In the morning I spend a long time fiddling around with cleaning the multi-fuel burner. Unfortunately, now I stubbornly cannot remember what kind of gasoline it became so clogged with - cheap Georgian or expensive Turkish.

The harsh log houses are somewhat reminiscent of Swiss Alpine huts, and the drying dung cakes on the stones evoke thoughts of their native Nepal.

We crawl up the serpentine road. I suddenly realize that I take surprisingly few photographs and it’s not at all about the surrounding landscapes. Looks like I have a fever! So that's why it was so hard to go.

At one o'clock in the afternoon we stop for lunch on the edge of a huge tumulus. While the guys eagerly devour sausage sandwiches, I fall into suspended animation and sleep for 40 minutes right on the warm stones.

The mountains are covered with clouds. After sleep, I walked away a little and am almost normally jumping along the large ridge.

Somewhere deep under the stones you can hear a stream. There is no water on the surface yet. A dry lake-puddle does not count.

15:00 we are at the Kale pass. You can't see anything because of the clouds.

We fall down just in time, because... a thunderstorm begins. Gusts of wind make putting on raincoats very difficult. But while we are fighting the elements, I completely forget about my sudden illness. Life is getting better.

At 17:00 it is still raining. We went down to the valley and set up tents under the cover of an awning.

In the evening the weather gets better and the guys even begin to dry their sleeping bags that were wet during the crossing. The wind did its job during the storm and helped wet the backpacks.

But the sunset was simply idyllic. When we were already lying in the tents, through the rolling sleep it seemed to me that the earth was shaking. So I didn’t understand whether it was an earthquake or fatigue.

Day 3. Khodakur Pass

In the morning we continued to dry our things, which, of course, meant a new meeting with water soon.

For dessert, we picked blueberries for breakfast. In Turkey it is the same as in the Carpathians and Norway and Mont Blanc and in general throughout the rest of the world.

From the parking lot we climbed up to the road leading from the neighboring farm to the pass

But there was no road there. We searched a little, looked for a path, realized the futility of the idea and simply followed the azimuth.

The place was swampy, it was squelching underfoot, but the views around were very photogenic.

Only two hours after the start a normal path appeared under our feet. By this time, the mountains began to be covered with Black Sea clouds again.

At noon it began to rain and to maintain morale we sat down to lunch. To do this, we quickly set up an awning in a hollow very reminiscent of the trenches on the Montenegrin ridge.

Around two we climbed the Khodakur pass 3150 m. The clouds there were even denser and I didn’t have any super photos from the pass itself.

But on the other side of the pass, a completely idyllic little world was discovered with cows, streams and green meadows.

However, the streams made me run around a couple of times in search of a convenient ford

We pass shepherd's huts and large cattle pens. We should have stopped here, but we were so carried away by moving our feet that we flew a couple of extra kilometers.

Apparently, the shepherds thoroughly move to the mountains for the season. Those. They take their families and children with them and live together in creepy sheds of stones and branches collected from them according to Stone Age drawings. The only amenities there are a potbelly stove in the corner and a mobile phone connection, if you're lucky. And of course no electricity.

Trees appeared again, but of a much more southern character. On this side of the pass the climate is drier, despite the abundance of water.

So we set up camp before it’s too late (before we run into the village).

Day 4. Getting closer to Kachkar

Well, we need to clear up the consequences of yesterday's sprint and gain altitude again. But first we go into the village and throw away the garbage.

The villages are very similar in architecture to Georgian ones. And the local residents themselves are very reminiscent of Georgians.

The trail is completely symbolic. Even numerous herds of cows are unable to maintain the existence of the road network even a couple of kilometers from the village.

By the way, the next shepherd has a gun on his bag of things. Are there really wolves here? However, in Svaneti we saw traces of a mountain bear right on the ridge, why shouldn’t there be predators here too?

We have lunch at the ruins of the shepherd's farm Soganli-Yayla. Height 2840 m. We put up an awning - this time from the sun.

We take advantage of the hot weather to swim in the icy stream and wash our socks.

At 16:30 we reach the nameless pass 3257 m. The whole world is under our feet - our path for the next 2 days is clearly visible. Kachkar, the famous Dilber camp and the colorful walls of the ancient volcano are visible.

We were already pretty tired, but as it turned out, the most fun part of the route was still ahead.

We are clearly away from the classic commercial routes. There is virtually no path underfoot. There is only a track on the map and rare tourists on pimples

At 18:04 we take the next pass of 3370 m. The last meters of the ascent turned out to be very steep and I want to believe that it will be easier further.

But no! Beyond the pass, the descent begins as expected and it only brings cause for concern. The stones under your feet are “living”. If you take a careless step, the cobblestone will fly off onto your comrades walking ahead.

In order not to kill each other with stones, we try to distribute ourselves more sophisticatedly along the sidelines. Fortunately, the traverse soon begins, where the risk is much lower, because... the stones simply go down without touching anyone.

Pay attention to Andrey's legs. He walks through this hell in sandals. I myself wear light shoes, but sandals! It is useless to argue, Andrey is an experienced hobbit. He also runs in the snow.

At 19:30 we finally reach our planned overnight stop near a small lake at an altitude of 3353 m. The people are tired, and Zhenya even has a little temperature. Wasn’t it my illness that jumped to him? I myself, thank God, have already completely recovered.

At this altitude the evening is expectedly cool. We sit by the burner, thinking about the stars. I'm wearing a jacket and a down vest.

Day 5. Climbing Kachkar

We get up at 5 am, but we can’t go out early. A lot of time is spent boiling water. Our lake does not look convincing enough to drink its water without treatment.

7:40 am, we finally started. We climb the ridge separating the two lakes and are blown away by the prospects. The lakes are certainly beautiful, but we are facing a slightly different situation.

The Kachkar wall is clearly visible ahead and it looks absolutely impregnable (for pedestrians). It is clear that this impression is deceptive and we will break through everywhere, but something tells us that at the same time we will get terribly bored.

We cross endless stone fields and cross a couple of snowfields. As always, the cutest gaps form at the border between rock and snow and you have to look for workarounds.

There are quite a lot of paths, it is difficult to choose the right one. Your head swells not from the height, but from the constant search for the optimal route through the kurumniks.

Large Lake Deniz, from which the ascent began, looks like a flooded crater. A little to the right, a fragment of another crater is held by a huge snowfield.

I see yesterday’s pass in the distance and once again I am amazed at human stubbornness.

We reach the top at 11:10. There is a large Turkish group there. Everyone is wearing helmets, many with flashlights. They probably spent the night in Dilber (400 meters below us) and started while it was still dark

At the top there is a box with a log of visits and several flags. Let's sign up and take pictures before it's too late.

The mountains are again covered with clouds. Visibility is very limited.

At the top we meet a charming dog. He sleeps peacefully next to that very box and waits until the tourists celebrating their victory throw him food.

We stayed at the top for an hour. Unfortunately, I don’t remember if any of our team had symptoms of miner fever, but judging by the speed of movement, everything was in order.

At exactly noon we turned down. By this time, most of the other tourists had already jumped down.

When we set off from the top, that same calm dog suddenly woke up. He looked around, stretched and followed us.

Due to the complexity of the terrain, the descent took the same 3 hours as the ascent. The constant concentration of attention exhausted us.

To relieve fatigue, our team stops at Lake Deniz and swims. I plan to do the same in a small lake, near the tents.

At 15:10 we return to camp and just lie on the mats for an hour.

Then the camp comes to life. We make coffee, assemble tents and pack backpacks. Today we need to descend almost 500 meters.

Around 17:00 we finally get out onto the trail.

Meanwhile, the clouds lifted and the mountains became irresistible again.

Guess who is still walking along the path with us?

Already at 18:30 we are at the Dilberduzu parking lot, altitude 2880 meters. There are a lot of people here, large commercial groups sit in dining tents, there is a stream and an equipped toilet nearby.

After sunset, we don’t go straight to bed, but start doing astrophotography. Apparently the climb was easy.

Day 6. Lazy

The morning is sunny and lazy.

We slowly sort through the junk and lazily chew our breakfast.

Around 9 am we set out on the route. The day will be hot. Literally 30 minutes after the start we stop at a spring to wash and freshen up.

At 10:30 we pass the shepherd village of Nastaf. Instead of houses, there are already familiar huts with a roof made of blue oilcloth. But on the outskirts of Nastaf there was a huge raspberry tree! This is already more interesting

By noon we descend to the real village of Olgunlar. There is electricity, normal houses and a small shop.

We buy bread, ayran and a pack of Turkish coffee.

Beyond the village the trail changes valleys and begins to go up.

The new valley is also very picturesque - a stream snakes along the bottom, and a wall of toothy rocks rises in the distance

We have lunch at small waterfalls above the Dibe-yayla sheepfolds.

By 15:00 we arrive at our overnight stay.

I suggest going to the radial trail to the neighboring peak, but it’s a bummer for everyone. We put up an awning from the sun, lazily lie in the shade, and swim in the stream.

A little later the entertainment program begins. A herd of cows comes from somewhere above and begins to aggressively rush at our dog.

The dog is too lazy to run away and huddles close to our tents in search of protection. This is no longer a joke - cows can easily trample the equipment.

The herd is determined - the cows do not particularly react to calls. To scare them away, we launch a drone. Its buzzing finally puts the aggressors to flight.

After an hour, the cows become bolder and return, but we already know what to do.

In the evening it gets cool, our guys huddle in one tent and play cards. I go to sleep in the free living space.

Day 7. Lake Karadeniz

We leave at 8:40. The trail is again of a purely virtual nature.

At the same time, a Polish group is walking with luggage mules and drivers.

The path to the pass is strewn with broken stones. Everything around is strewn with stones. These mountains are crumbling.

At 10:10 we are already at the Naletleme pass 3179 m. Below us there is a sea of ​​​​clouds and probable coolness. In the meantime, apply thick sunscreen.

By noon we go down to Lake Karadeniz (Turkish Black Sea). A foggy veil has already been deployed above him and the air breathes freshness. We have lunch by the water.

After lunch, we very quickly went down to the village, did not very quickly make an agreement with the minibus, and within a couple of hours we were in Pazar, on the coast.

Final

We quickly moved along the route and slightly exceeded the plan. There were still more than two days left before the plane, and in order to somehow occupy them we moved to Trabzon.

There we wandered through the shopping streets and ruins of the fortress, took a ride to the mountain monastery of Panagia Sumela and drank tea from a Turkish samovar for a long time.

The hike along Kachkar turned out to be intense and pleasantly challenging. In just a week we had a good run, changed several climate zones and had a great rest. Kachkar exceeded my expectations and I think it will be nice to come back here again.

Kirill Yasko