Translation

The Eastern Kaçkar: A short walk around Barhal

The Altıparmak-Kaçkar-Verçenik range of mountains, rising to nearly 4,000 meters, runs northeast-southwest, parallel with the Black Sea shore.
The area is known locally as a “honey forest,” though its fame has spread beyond the region. Indeed its beauty is such that words are not sufficient to describe it; it must be seen to be understood. However alarm bells are ringing for Ayder, which has recently become a popular tourist resort.


 

The Kaçkar National Park lies mainly west of Kaçkar’s peak itself, and north of the Verçenik massif, with its myriad jewels of lakes. Thus it protects the lush emerald forests on the rainy north side of the range, but not the drier, steep summer pastures centered on the small towns of Yaylalar and Barhal, accessed via Yusufeli and Erzurum. These once-wealthy yaylas are rapidly polarizing -- where modern roads reach them, city dwellers are repairing old family houses, sometimes on a grand scale, and the area is reviving. But the majority, without electricity or roads, are dying of neglect. Only a few families maintain traditional lifestyles and these send their children to İstanbul for education. Cattle farming, bee-keeping and orchards are no longer profitable, a few have jobs with the forestry authorities and others turn to tourism. Families open their houses as pensions or shops, and men work as guides and mulemen for the short tourist season.
With only a primary school, no hospital and no shops other than small grocery businesses, daily life depends on dolmuş services to the market town of Yusufeli. With such a severe climate, the winding riverside road undergoes constant disruption and repair, and the 50-kilometer journey, when possible, can take three or four hours.
The summer visitor is immediately spellbound by the beauty of the lush green valleys, spangled with sparkling flowers and butterflies, with the jagged granite peaks sawing the sky above. It’s only after a few days’ exposure to this wonderland that the fitness and endurance of the locals, and the harshness of winter life, sinks in. Now is the time to meet these stoical yet welcoming people and experience their life on the summer yaylas, before the last families drift away to İstanbul or Bursa and only the tourists are left.
Below I describe a circular walk based on Barhal, which takes you through several yaylas, inhabited and empty. The goal of the walk is Karagöl (Black Lake) in a hollow scooped by a glacier below the upright digits of Altıparmak -- the six-fingered mountain. Take a tent and food for three days, for you will spend the nights on one of the most delightful campsite in the world -- Satibe -- a grassy ridge rising clear of thick pine forest, with views all along the range of the Kaçkar and down into the deep valleys of the Kışla (south) and Barhal (north) streams.

Day 1:
Barhal to Satibe via Sarıbulut: 5-6 hours

Our route starts from Barhal, opposite the turning for the Karahan pension. Here a wooden bridge over the stream leads to a decaying watermill and a path that turns left and rises up the ridge to the ruins of a small chapel. Looking back you have wonderful views down to the 10th century monastery church -- a basilica plan building with a central aisle of immense height, set under a steeply pitched stone roof. From the chapel, turn right and follow a clear path rising along the ridge line. It climbs steadily through forest to a junction where a wide path leads downhill, then level across the lush upper pastures of Sarıbulut (yellow cloud) yayla. The yayla lies along a short spur leading south from the main ridge, and is usually accessed by a walk of half-an-hour along a line of telegraph posts from an unsurfaced road from Barhal. It’s now completely deserted -- most of the 20 smallish stone and timber houses are collapsing gently, and the mills just above the village no longer have water flowing to them. Just past the right-hand houses, turn right and up, past the mills, and find a path leading up the right side of a valley, through rhododendron scrub and pines, to the open grassy ridge above. Continue left along the ridge, to locate a water pipe gushing into a hollow tree-trunk. Here, at 2,450m, is your campsite for the next two nights -- complete with water, firewood from the forests below and level pitches for many tents.

Day 2:
Satibe to Karagöl and back via Nebişatgur Tepesi: 5 hours

The sun rises early on Satibe, so dew will still be on the long grass as you set off west along the ridge-top water channel towards Karagöl. Gentians, buttercups and orchids line the channel, which in places has fallen away or been filled by landslides. Follow it around a sharp corner by some pines, and through scree toward the source -- a waterfall gushing from hidden Karagöl down the steep glaciated valley. Here, at a cairn, turn up over a rhododendron-clad rise to a path which rises steeply left. At a junction, take a gently rising path right towards the lip of the cirque -- beyond this, hidden until the last moment, is Karagöl. Nearly all year the north-facing lake is ringed by snow, so although the water may look tempting, the briefest splash can freeze your marrow.
To the right and slightly below the lake are some stone huts -- roofless and useless -- and behind them a path leading west up the stream to more small lakes. This is the route to Büyükkapı, the pass between Didvake and Altıparmak, leading over the range to Zigam yaylası. Explore as far as you like, then return to the junction on your incoming path. Here turn upwards on narrow path rising over a crest towards Nebişatgur Tepesi -- turn back for a final view of Altıparmak. The path levels and contours across the grassy slope until the campsite comes into view. You could turn right to the summit of Nebişatgur or left, and down the ridge crest toward your tent.

Day 3:
Satibe to Barhal via Amaneskit and Naznara yaylas: 4-6 hours

Pack up your tent and start as for Day 2, along the water channel. At the clump of pines, turn down the ridge on steep hairpins, with pines on your left, then follow a water channel as it descends the ridge through Amaneskit and Naznara yaylas. The butterflies on this channel are amazing -- blues, apollos, fritillaries in jewel-like colors. Some of the houses are massive stone-built mansions with barns of logs, allowing the air to circulate. In July whole families work at scything the hay, and carting it to the barns, to supply the cattle for the winter. These are still working yaylas, although the watermills along the course of the channel no longer function.
Below Naznara, leave the ridge to descend to the river on your left, and cross a log bridge onto the dirt road, which leads down the valley to Barhal. You could take a detour up to Altıparmak yayla, and the others on the north slopes -- a path leads up from the end of the road and after passing through the yaylas rejoins a secondary road which runs downhill to join the main Barhal dirt road.
At Barhal, end your walk with a visit to the monumental monastery church, which soars, like the mountains, to meet the overarching sky.

Fingertip Facts:

Location: Barhal; about 30 kilometers west of Yusufeli, in the Artvin province.
When to go: July for spring flowers, butterflies and birds
Access: From Erzurum, local bus to Yusufeli; dolmuş to Barhal leaves about 3 pm.
Pensions: Half board at Karahan pension, (446) 826 2071 www.karahanpension.com; Barhal pension 826 20 31; Marsis village house 826 2026 www.marsisotel.com
Barhal (Parkhali) church: is now a mosque and kept locked -- ask at the adjoining school for a key. The frescos have been whitewashed, but angels are carved on the pillars.
Web site, maps and books: www.mountainsofturkey.com, www.kackarlar.org, have local information and a downloadable map. “Trekking in Turkey” (Marc Dubin and Enver Lucas, Lonely Planet) is out of print but useful; “Mountains of Turkey” (Karl Smith, Cicerone) has brief descriptions of many walks.
Equipment: Thick soled boots and good socks, waterproofs, water bottle, sun glasses and sunscreen, camera, rucksack, food and cooking equipment for two nights /three days, sleeping bag and mat, tent.


8.04.2007 KATE CLOW ANTALYA
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