Turkey Part 3 - A Hike to Remember

During the week of my fingers needing to heal, Tenzin and I got the brilliant idea to hike Geyik Sivrisi, the mountain about five or six miles through the woods from camp (distance depending how lost you would get navigating the goat trails and bushwhacking). We gathered all the information we could from camp veterans and a book, I downloaded an aerial view of the area onto my phone through a GPS program, and we packed our bags for an early Saturday morning start. we set our alarms for 5am, I cooked breakfast, we finished our packing, and we set on our way at about 6am. We each had a pack that contained sleeping bag, three liters of water each, food, a climbing rope to rappel down in case that was safer than hiking if it was steep, slings for the rappels, and our harnesses. After doing a bit of bushwhacking and navigating through an extremely small village, we arrived near the base of the mountain in about three or four hours. We filled our bellies with sandwiches and started the trek up the mountain.



Geyik Sivrisi



I will spare you the details, but we prematurely cut up the mountain and ended up being glad we brought that rope along because some more vertical climbing was required. We arrived at the top of the approximately 600 meter climb around 3pm. We signed the summit log book (which ironically had a last entry about a week before from a climber Tenzin met in Germany) and began to collect firewood for the night before having dinner. We were in the clouds most of the night so the air was humid and wet and the trees overhead were dripping large water drops on my sleeping bag and forehead periodically through the night (maybe as a reminder to keep the fire going for warmth). I slept with a pile of wood right next to me and the fire about three feet away, making for optimal lazy fire maintenance without having to remove myself from the sleeping bag.

Hiking up.

We made it to the top:)

View from the top.

We woke up to clear skies and a phenomenal view, all excited for our seemingly easy hike and rappel ahead of us. My option would have been the way we were originally intended to come up. Tenzin's preference was rappelling down at a steeper section due to the potential for a quicker descent and less risk of slipping if we scrambled down since the rock was rather damp from the night in the clouds. So as to expedite this story and not concern you all as the reader (specifically my family), I will simplify the remainder of the descent. Tenzin is a more experienced climber than me, so I trusted his instinct and we proceeded down the mountain via rappelling (although that would have been the second time during our adventure that trusting my instinct might have been the potentially safer, less exciting answer). About a quarter of the way down, clouds started to roll in, allowing for a couple gorgeous pictures above the cloud line. It wasn't so gorgeous however once we reached the clouds and had about 15 meters of visibility the remainder of the way to the ground. In fact, it was quite erie. We finally managed to make it to the bottom after about five hours, finished off the rest of our food, and set off for the hike back to Josito. It turned out to be a very successful and fun first summit for me since I ironically (living in the dessert) have really only hiked big canyons, going down first, and hadn't really attacked any mountains before. Everyone was excited to see us at camp that evening, including Toby (one of the owners) since Tenzin was due to work in a couple of hours. Everyone had questions and wanted to hear about our adventure, and Tenzin has since been referencing it as "our mountain". The next day was a rest day for the both of us and climbing recommenced the following day.



The descent.



Poor visibility!

On a side note, maybe for my own sake of documentation of friends met at camp and in the event that they come up in later posts, I have made good friends with two additional German girls, Aneka and Julia who are working at camp for a month, as well as Johannes from Denmark. There is also Nasim who has been at Josito now for almost four years working and climbing. And until next time, in words of Nasim...stay high and be dangerous. 😉 Kisses and hugs to all!