Day 3 continued
The bus took us to Pinarbasi where we were fed in the home of our Taurus trek chef with the first of several of his excellent meals. Later we walked up the road to the Maden valley and our first camp in the Ala Dag, a section of the Taurus mountains.
Day 4
We walked up the Maden Gorge, which only recently had beeen flooded by torrential storms. Fresh rubble was there to be seen in these three pictures image 1, image 2 and image 3 of the gorge. We stopped for tea with nomads at their camp. From their camp we continued to climb up to Lake Karagol and our second camp.
Day 5
We continued our trek past this stunning panorama of the Demirkazik massif to and through the Akcay valley and on towards the Tekkekalesi Pass photo. There was a spectacular panorama from the top of the pass. A hole drilled through the cliff photo as we looked back and a view of the lakes of Yedi Goller ahead photo. The descent was quite steep photo but we had this panorama from the bottom as we continued to the Yedi Goller (Seven Lakes) basin. We passed by one lake photo 1 and photo 2 to our lunch spot by the lake. Eventually we reached our camp with the spectacular Direktas behind. That night, with beautifully clear skies we were able to watch shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower.
Day 6
Today we headed for the peak of Mount Embler (3723 m), the second-highest peak in the region after Mount Demirkazik. Firstly we walked up the pass on the right in this photo. The summit of the pass is seen below us photo as we make the final push to the summit. From the top there's a marvellous panorama to the north, here showing the sharp peak of Mount Demirkazik nearby. As usual on such occasions we posed for a summit group photo. We stayed for a while on the summit, as it was warm, before we headed back down to the col and continued down the Celikbuyduran Pass and the Yalak Deresi trail. It was steep and narrow in places image 1,
image 2 ,image 3 and we had the opportunity to hone our scree-running skills. Eventually we found ourselves high above our camp at Sokullupinar photo.
Day 7
We clambered down through the Cimbar Canyon which was like this all the way, then into the village of Demirkazık for lunch and a much-wanted hot shower. From the coach on the way back to Kayseri we could see the Ala Dag mountains in which we had spent a thrilling past few days. After dinner in Kayseri we caught the overnight sleeper train to Erzurum and the next part of our adventure.