Turkish Delights
Popular with small British climbing trips in the 60’s and 70’s Turkey has since then fallen somewhat out of favour of late. The odd civil war and massive earthquakes brushed aside there appears to be no reason for this as the rock is over abundant and generally excellent in quality. On the summer of 2000 at the start of the Hot Rock Silk Route Expedition, a large group of us thought that we would drive down to look around for good climbing; or maybe it was the cheap beer, great beaches and belly dancers, I forget.
Arriving
in Istanbul we crossed the Bosphorus from Europe into Asia and popped into
Adrenalin a small (the only) climbing shop in new Constantinople. Straight
away we were invited out to the local crag, only 30km south of Istanbul, to
sample the rock and heartily sandbagged by the local elite. Ballykaylar is
kind of a picnic spot for wealthy Turks and is set in a lovely valley ( if
you discount the cement works and green chemical stream flowing somewhat frothily
below). The climbing is spread over two main limestone buttresses with about
25 bolted routes and others on trad mostly around French 6b to 7b.
We were there at the weekend and about twenty local climbers were out with
top rope antics seeming to be the norm. After repeating all but the hardest
routes Dave Lucas and myself had a look at adding a couple of new routes.
The first line that grabbed us wandered through a roof on marginal gear to
join the lower off of an existing climb. Oli Watkins had just taken a 20’
wiper attempting the line moments earlier stripping the top four pieces of
gear from behind a flake that valiantly held on for old times sake. Dave pottered
up past the
balancy 5c moves lower down to place the gear which was not just psychological
it was bordering on Pathological as a fall from higher than Oli’s would
definitely end up in a climber/ground interface. He reached the point of no
return seemingly soon and decided to test my belaying by trundling dramatically
downwards. As the ground rushed up to smite him for disrespecting gravity
I sprinted away (for fear of him landing on me let me add) to end up at about
the same level as him. We shook hands and he came down to terrafirma. After
this close scrape(literally) he got straight back on the climb after a few
calming lullaby’s to complete the first ascent of ‘Fly me Pretties
fly’ (E4 5c)
The next day we cranked up the Hilti and bolted an arête higher up the valley which became ‘Pink Moon’ at F7a+. A local lad, Ozturk, flashed it with ridiculous ease giving us the first insight that donner kebabs may not be the only winning export of turkey. After a few days climbing we picked up a couple of the leading local climbers Duan and Doygu and headed south to Bilecik and the recently developed sports climbing area known as ‘Fish crag’. We were invited to camp in the grounds of a 13th century Mosque which was all well and good besides the morning call to prayer can be a bit of a handful with a hangover.
The
crag itself was compact limestone with awesome views over the central Anatolian
Plateau. When not climbing we spent most of our time lying full length in
a remote cow trough full of ice cold spring water. This was essential as the
temperature at mid-day resembled the centre of a nuclear reactor in Meltdown
stage. In the evenings we still managed to get good routes in repeating some
of Duans arm busters and adding ‘Northern Scum’ by Dave Lucas
and myself at E2 5c but stolen by ‘cheeky Andy’ on a dawn raid
once it had been bolted, hence toned down discussion of his characteristics
became the route name. With so few active climbers in Turkey, even where a
crag is being developed there are still plum lines to be had in all grades
such as Roger Ward’s and Jonny 9.5’s “Kelly’s Heros”
which wombled enigmatically up a steep slab, or “Out of Africa”
a dynamic climb up a blunt arête which was dispatched at F6c+ by Oli
Watkins. We soon had to leave however as the local army had took an interest
in us wandering all over the hills in which we can only assume they had some
covert base. We had now been travelling long enough and were thus dishevelled
enough that far from being smiled upon by the armed forces we were more likely
to be fired upon. Retreat definitely was the best, and indeed most part of
valour.
Moving south our next climbing stop was near the idyllic lake Egradir in the
~Dedigol Daglari mountains.. About an hour and a half away from the lake,
bars and potential to get arrested for skinny dipping we had he
ard
tale of vast cliffs near a remote village. We drove up increasingly rough
tracks until the object of our desires came into view and fell into the hard
to miss category of crags.
A 3 kilometre wall spread out before us varying in height from 400 -800metres. This was surrounded by hundreds of 30 -80m ‘craglets’ to explore and countless perfect boulders scattered in the high alpine meadow. The main walls had only one existing route so we camped at the base and set out to new route.
The limestone was steep and solid and there was always a nodding acquaintance with natural gear so Dave Lucas and Bill Stubbs put up the ground up 500m ‘ Mad dogs and Englishmen’ at E2 5b. We put up many other new routes and have since been back again in 2002 to do even more. The local climbers have also started adding new routes but with a potential for thousands its time to start thinking up route names and eyeing up lines. The potential is vast and this remote area of turkey is stunning with people going about there lives much as they have for thousands of years.
From
the Dedigol our next main destination was the hippy hang out beach life on
the south coast at the tree houses of Olympos. Based in our teetering tree
abodes we set off down the valley and put up numerous new routes on the steep
limestone walls. What grabbed and kept our attention though was the fantastic
beach bouldering and deep water solo’s. If you can drag yourself off
the beach there are loads of areas developed up and down the coast from here
on the highly featured tufa packed limestone. Check out the Antalya section
of the brand new Turkish climbing site at www.climbturkey.com.
From the beach we fancied getting to grips with some bigger walls once more so we drove inland to the Ala Dag mountains. (Cicerone guidebook) Imagine 1000 metre climbs comprising of suicidaly loose blocks, collapsing belay ledges, inferno heat or icy cold, killer sheep dogs, gear that exists only in the depths of your imagination and difficult route finding. Throw them all into the blender and you can be sure it will come out brown, just like your kecks after climbing there. Avoid this place I say; danger Will Robinson don't go!!!!!!!!
On the Hot Rock Silk route expedition we then drove East to do some climbing on the 1.2km high limestone big walls in Iran, but that’s another story.
