Geyikbayırı, Antalya’s sport climbing

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Bryan Keith

Geyikbayırı is no secret.  The sport climbing guidebook I have (4th edition, published 2011) lists 618 bolted routes in Geyikbayırı.  There’s not a new edition yet, but there’s a supplement that I’ve seen floating around, listing corrections, and, I don’t know, another 50-100 new routes.  Climbers come from all over the world to climb the limestone at Geyikbayırı.  On Christmas Day I even met two couples from Boulder.  It only took us a few minutes to find some mutual friends.  Mostly, however, it’s Germans, Russians, and Turks that I meet at the crags.

I’ve now been climbing at Geyikbayırı more times than I can count, and I have to admit that I’ve done more sport climbing in Antalya than I did in over 20 years living in Boulder.  It’s not that there’s no trad climbing in Antalya.  However, there are many more developed sport routes than trad routes.  Also, when I first got to Antalya, I didn’t have any of my climbing equipment, and few people here have the equipment to climb trad.  I’m starting to do more now.

There are all levels of difficulty, but it’s impressive the number of routes in the V-VI range (5.5-5.10 YDS), perhaps 130.  Since it’s bolted, I’ve been talked into leading a few VIIs as well…

Back in October I helped out at a rock climbing festival with TODOSK by setting up some top ropes, belaying, and teaching people how to tie in and belay.  It was of course Turkish style with a break in the middle of the day for a big lunch and tea.

DSCN9213 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Climbing with Seb (aka bolts on Etli Döner)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Bryan Keith

A couple months ago I met Seb(astian), a German who came to Antalya to start a photovoltaic company with his business partner, Olaf.  Olaf is the one with heaps of PV experience.  Seb loves to talk, meet people, smile.  His job — not surprisingly — is the marketing.  He’s good at networking so it’s not such a surprise that he met me.  In the couple months he’s lived in Antalya I bet he’s met more foreigners than I have in the many months I’ve been here since first arriving in February 2012.

Seb by bryandkeith on flickr

Seb is (barely) starting to learn Turkish and certainly isn’t afraid of talking and making mistakes.  After climbing a couple days ago (which ostensibly is what this post is about) we stopped at the bakery on the way back to town.  He had been there a number of times before and asked me how to say “what’s your name?” before we entered.  At the counter was a cute young head-scarved Turkish woman with a smile that’s still sparkling in my memory.  Seb chose his baked goods and then of course had to ask me again.  “Senin adın ne?” I told him again, easily overheard by the woman.  He smiled and repeated the phrase to the woman.  She smiled and answered.  Hahaha, fun to see the enthusiasm to learn.

Our main goal of that day wasn’t actually the bakery.  Seb and I have climbed a number of times on the bolts at Geyikbayırı, but we wanted to get out trad climbing that day.  We followed the guidebook directions to the rocks above Hurma, a place neither of us had climbed before.  The book had photos of what looked like a stellar route, Etli Döner.  We found it easily, perhaps a 10 minute walk from the paved road.

Sure enough, from the ground it did look stellar, but, uh-oh, we were both shocked to see bolts on the route.  There are over 600 bolted routes at Geyikbayırı.  What are they doing bolting easily-protected climbs in other areas?  The two routes here were first-climbed less than five years ago.  In Yılmaz’ trad climbing book, published even more recently, they’re listed as trad climbs — bring stoppers and friends (cams in Colorado lingo)…  Major disappointment.
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Ilgaz’ Küçük Hacet

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Bryan Keith

For New Years week I went to Ankara to spend some time with Gezginder friends.  That’s the name of one of Ankara’s hiking/outdoor groups, like TODOSK in Antalya.  Banu and Deniz were busy working on their theses, but Sabiha, Pınar, and Ateş were able to get away for the weekend to climb Küçük Hacet in Ilgaz.  We went by bus a few hours (2-3?) north of Ankara to the Çankırı/Kastamonu border and left the main road at Ilgaz Geçidi, a pass that Julie and I had climbed on our bikes (from the Black Sea side) 15 years ago.

I was curious how much I’d remember about the road from the pass to Çankırı since I’m pretty sure Julie and I used the same road.  Ha, nothing!  It looks like it must have been a big fun descent, but I have no recollection of it.  I’m thinking about going back to Çorum this year for some cycling — guess I don’t have to worry about a seen-this-all-before feeling!

There were about 8 of us on the Küçük Hacet climb, and most of us signed up because we were excited to climb in snow and use our crampons and ice axes.  Well, there’s still very little snow in Ilgaz this year.  The small ski resort there must be running on a tiny base.  I’ve heard they have the same problem at the ski areas in Bolu, Isparta, Antalya, and İzmir.  Hopefully it’s been snowing more in eastern Turkey since I have a ski trip planned there in March.

We had a casual start from Ankara Saturday morning and that day only walked a couple kilometers from the main road to the spot where we made camp.  We camped in the snow, but it certainly wasn’t cold like Colorado winter camping.  The weather that week was quite mild, but also the elevation was fairly low: 1800m at camp, 2500m at the summit.

DSCN9451 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Isparta’s Barla Dağı

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Bryan Keith

Barla Dağı (2800m) is in Isparta, not far from beautiful Eğidir Gölü.  I joined TODOSK for a weekend ascent of this peak a couple months ago.  I had been with TODOSK on a number of their crowded (40-100 people) Sunday hikes and also on a couple rock climbing days, but I had never been for one of their “mountaineering” (dağcılık) weekends before.  It was a little too regimented for my taste (“walk single file”, “you’re not using your poles correctly”).  I found being at the back was better because fewer people can see you and criticize you.  However, one time I stopped to pee, and the sweep radioed ahead to the leader to tell him to slow down the already terribly slow pace.

DSCN9268 by bryandkeith on flickr

Still it was a fun weekend.  We did some touring on the way to the mountain, including a stop in İslamkoy, the village where former prime minister Süleyman Demirel was born.  There’s a museum complex and library which in my own humble opinion will be interesting to very few people.

We had a more interesting stop in Isparta, a provincial capital I had never visited before.  Unfortunately my camera was buried in my pack which was itself buried in the back of the minibus so I didn’t get any photos.  I’ll have to remember to get a small bag handy during these trips.  In that regard the others were more prepared than I was.

We had one night at camp (car camping) and then got a very early start the next morning for the short easy walk up the mountain.  I’m not sure why we walked for two hours in the dark in the morning when we could have comfortably done the whole walk during the light.  The weather (and weather forecast) was perfect.
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Çalbalı, a short hike near Antalya

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Bryan Keith

One of the prominent but not very high peaks to the west of Antalya is Çalbalı Dağı.  It’s only 1650m, low enough that it still has trees on top.  It looks like there could be good climbing routes to the summit, but most people simply walk to the top.  Indeed even the trad climbing guide book that I have for Antalya doesn’t list any climbing routes on Çalbalı Dağı.

Ahmet who I’ve cycled with and been up a couple mountains with was nominally our guide for our short walk up Çalbalı.  I think he’s been up the peak dozens of times.  He said at one point that he climbs it almost every month.  I imagine that’s an exaggeration.  In addition to Ahmet were Terry and Cemalettin and a couple Turks visiting from Kayseri who I hadn’t met before.

Here are a few photos from our hike:

DSCN9165 by bryandkeith on flickr
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