Aladağlar

PeaksNiğde, Türkiye

August·Peaking now

Jul–Sep

High summer is the full range: all routes run — the Yedigöller crossing, over 350 bolted lines in Kazıklıali canyon, the north face of Demirkazık — under dry, near-rainless skies, though the Seven Lakes shrink to cracked mud by September.

Year-round The limestone walls, the karst gorges and the wild goats are here all year; the lakes, the birds and the snow are not.

For half a century Turkish maps named the wrong summit as the highest in this range. Every photograph of Aladağlar is dominated by Demirkazık, the 3,756-metre blade of rock above Çamardı, and the old survey sheets gave it the crown. Then a retired colonel found an error in those sheets, and in 2008 Turkey's mapping command and its mountaineering federation went back up with GPS receivers. The title passed to a quieter neighbour: Kızılkaya, at 3,771 metres the high point of the Central Taurus. More than forty summits here clear 3,500 metres, and nearly all of them end in bare, sharp rock. The mountains are limestone and marble, which water dissolves rather than running off, so the massif is drilled through with sinkholes, shafts and underground rivers. Snow melting up here sinks into the rock and comes back out at Kapuzbaşı, where springs burst sideways from a cliff face into the Zamantı river. Ice-age glaciers cut the rest: the bowl-shaped cirques, the fans of loose scree and the saw-toothed ridges. Walkers start from Demirkazık village and camp at Sokulupınar, where herding families still pitch their tents on the grass, then climb stony gorges to the Yedigöller plateau at 3,100 metres. Yedigöller means Seven Lakes, but only one of them holds water all year: Büyükgöl, which is fed by a spring from below. The other six fill with snowmelt and then dry out, so in early July you walk between seven lakes and by September you walk across six cracked, empty hollows. Climbers come here for the rock rather than the summits. Kazıklıali canyon carries more than 350 bolted routes on pocketed conglomerate, and the north face of Demirkazık, first climbed in 1972, is still the hardest alpine wall in the country. The massif has been a national park since 1995, and the cliffs above the village are a wildlife reserve where rangers count the wild goats animal by animal. Birdwatchers come here to photograph the goats. Every year the reserve also sells a small number of the goats to trophy hunters under an official quota.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The way in is Demirkazık village, above Çamardı — Sokulupınar is the road-head camp, and a rough track climbs on from there to the Arpalık pastures by tractor or pickup.
The Yedigöller crossing usually clears only in late June — go earlier and the passes still hold hard snow, which means an ice axe, crampons and someone who has been up there before.
Fill every bottle before you go high — this is limestone, so the streams sink into the rock, and between Sokulupınar and the plateau the springs are few and easy to miss.
There is no marked trail up here, only cairns and open karst — hidden sinkholes, loose scree and cloud that builds fast after noon; most parties hire a Çamardı guide for the plateau.
Scan the scree at first light — the wild goats feed low and in the open early, then climb into the cliffs and are all but invisible by mid-morning.

Things to do

1
Cross the Yedigöller plateau to camp by Büyükgöl
Two days of stony gorges bring you out on a cirque floor at 3,100 metres, walled in on every side by grey limestone and littered with glacial rubble. Pitch a tent by Büyükgöl, the one lake that never empties, and the walls come down to the waterline in the evening light.
2
Stand under the north face of Demirkazık
Nobody climbed this wall until 1972, when an Australian and a New Zealander finally picked a line up it. Stand on the scree at its foot and hundreds of metres of bare limestone lean over you — still the hardest alpine routes in the country, and cold enough that the face keeps its ice into spring.
3
Walk in through the firs of the Emli valley
The classic way into the massif runs up a valley floor of Taurus fir and juniper, with limestone walls closing in on both sides and the Parmakkaya pinnacle standing clear on the skyline. Climbers walk this way to their routes; shepherds' paths peel off it towards the high pastures.
4
See the grey walls turn rust-red at first light
At dawn, and again at dusk, low sun rakes along the ridges and the grey limestone flushes copper and rust while the valley floors stay black. The range is said to owe its name to exactly this — ala, meaning mottled, many-coloured — and it lasts only a few minutes.
5
Camp at Sokulupınar among the herders' tents
Sokulupınar is the road-head camp on the grass at the foot of the walls, where herding families still spend the summer under canvas. The nights are cold and unlit; at dawn the climbers set off towards the rock while the flocks head the other way, uphill.
6
Climb the pocketed walls of Kazıklıali
A canyon cuts two kilometres into the massif, and both its walls are conglomerate: 80 to 90 metres of pockets, single-finger holds and overhangs, carrying more than 350 bolted routes from gentle warm-ups to open projects. It is the biggest sport-climbing venue in the range.
7
Wait for the snowcock above Arpalık
Birders leave the village around four in the morning, grind up to the Arpalık pastures at 2,200 metres and then sit still and listen. This is the classic place in Turkey to find Caspian snowcock, along with wallcreeper, crimson-winged finch and Radde's accentor.