TR: Kayaking in Turkey, Toros mountains May/June 2012

In the beginning of May a friend of mine, chris, invited me to co-guide a trip in the Toros mountains in Turkey, which I gladly accepted. Chris and his girlfriend had packed their van much earlier this year and left Germany for an epic adventure taking them to the rivers of Greece, Turkey, Georgia, and some other stops on the way.

So I jumped a plane with my boat..
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arrival in Antalya:
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the landscape is fantastic and the people are extremely hospitable. we had to turn down invitations to tea more than a few times... otherwise there wouldn't have been any time left for kayaking!
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8012/...edeba1cb_z.jpg
http://www.kanumagazin.de/typo3temp/...e2382b88c0.jpg

Upon arrival, we decided to check out some of the rivers. 4 Days until the group arrives, enough time to check water levels and for me to become aquainted with the local culture and some of the rivers.

The Alara was really high, so we couldn't run the classic roadside section.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8021/...9f1ef4c3_c.jpg
We did however check out the lower part of the big gorge (too much water for taking the group) and the upper Alara, which is a fun grade 3 run with one difficult section.
me on the lower section:
http://www.kanumagazin.de/typo3temp/...a2cfc5aea1.jpg
upper:
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here's chris running the hardest part of the upper Alara river:
http://www.kanumagazin.de/typo3temp/...2d92b6ac5b.jpg

When the group arrived, we started out with the classic Köpru Cay rafting run, and then went off to do a couple of the smaller creeks not far from the coast, all offering long stretches of great class 3 (sometimes 4) whitewater with crystal clear and rather warm water, and surrounded by old, gnarly trees.
Köprü:
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we also did a little bit of teaching. herr stoiber demonstrating the boof
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and some before-dinner rope technique
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Freecamping was never a problem..
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our driver mehmet ali:
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cooking good food
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and sometimes we went out for dinner
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After Küprülü, Kargi, Karpuz and upper Alara we drove a bit to reach the Gevne river, which is much further into the heart of the mountains. Put in is at about 1500m above sea level - the other rivers we started at around 500m.

Gevne river, two days (but more are possible!) of class 3 to 4+:
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the gevne is also threatened by the construction of a hydroelectric power plant..
http://www.riverrunner.de/wp-content...gevne2_171.jpg
hopefully, this won't affect the best stretches of whithewater. but generally, if you want to paddle in turkey, you need to hurry up. I was already too late in the Coruh region in July, but that's the next TR to come.

If you're interested in coming to Turkey or Georgia with a guided trip (which also offers a lot of world class whitewater and culture) you can contact Chris. He's currently hitchhiking somewhere around Rumania, but he will be back kayaking in the Antalya region in October (which, btw, is a really good time, enough flow, stable and warm weather, the sea is really warm too for swimming, and colored leaves as a bonus). Prices are extremely fair (but it's camping and cooking, not 4-star lodges), guiding and safety is excellent, and Chris has been intensively exploring Turkish rivers for a decade now and contributed a lot to the Turkish kayaking scene. His webpage is in German, but he speaks English very well.

http://www.toros-outdoors.de/pages/kontakt.php

cheers,
herr_stoiber
http://www.riverrunner.de/wp-content...rnhard2_81.jpg

--- foto credit for pictures not from my flickr account:
look at
http://www.kanumagazin.de/touren/rei...ragen-5-gevne/
http://www.kanumagazin.de/touren/rei...nd-koepruelue/
http://www.kanumagazin.de/touren/rei...puz-und-kargi/
http://www.riverrunner.de/?p=1777#more-1777
(where you can also find additional pictures, and some german text).

That looks like a super fun trip, man! Great looking water.

How does the camping work? I'm only familiar with the public land rules of the States. Is there the equivalent of National Forest land? Are you asking private land owners for permission to camp on their land? Sorry for being ignorant.

Anyway, thanks for the photos.

Fantastic kayaking/travel TR....I enjoyed it!

Did you find the Turkish government hospitable? I always find, that when in a foreign country, the government agents can be a pain in the ass, but once you get all the paperwork/visas/customs straight and get out of their office, the people themselves are usually super nice and you can travel at will. Even in Russia/Siberia, you can travel at will. Of course, this was distinctly NOT the case in North Korea...where almost everywhere we traveled, there were minders watching us. You can disappear into a shop for a few minutes, but the minder will be outside, waiting.

I've heard that Turkey has really opened up to the outside, compared to what they used to be decades ago.

Many there still seem to dislike Americans, though.

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Originally Posted by Alaskan Rover

Many there still seem to dislike Americans, though.

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Is that from first hand experience, or did you hear it on cable news?

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Originally Posted by JRainey

Is that from first hand experience, or did you hear it on cable news?

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Neither....from friends that had traveled there a few years ago....of course that was when Bu$h was still in office and he was bombing the shit out of Iraq....so that might have added to their strife. They were treated fine by the government officials, just got some flack from various store-owners and such. They're world travelers, so they took it with ease of course. The first time they were there, they were traveling by sailboat, and they were treated like kings. But not that time. I think it was maybe the Bu$h War that caused the strife.

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Fair nuff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JRainey

Is that from first hand experience, or did you hear it on cable news?

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The cable always wins.... :P

I have several friend's who've traveled there in the last few years, and all said Turkey was amazingly friendly. A couple of my friends were hitchiking there and said the people love to meet outsiders, and that they were being offered rides by all sorts of people. Turkey is definitely on my list!

Herr Stoiber, great TR, love the pics and the scenery, looks like a magical place :)

do want.

Norseman, regarding the camping the were some places where we had asked the land owners, and others where we just set up the tents in the countryside. Generally there aren't too many kayakers, but rafting is rather well known. So e.g. we spent some nights at a raft base. Only time we payed for staying was at the Ucansu waterfalls because this small stretch of land was a national park. Otherwise, the people reacted in a very friendly manner to freecamping on public land, asking what we were doing and telling us about their work in the fields etc .

Officials within Turkey seemed rather pleasant - some park rangers once came to talk to us when we were freecamping on the Alara to ask us some questions about how kayaking works. We did however have a discussion once with the Jandarma (military police) about whether we had official permission to "raft" a river, mainly because they felt they were in charge of keeping people safe and they said they wouldn't have known how to resuce us if something happened. We (and especially our Turkish driver Mehmet Ali) managed to convince them that we are able to take care of ourselves after a few minutes though.

So, @Alaskan, yes I think as soon as you enter the country you won't have much trouble. On my second trip to Turkey this year we were even able to travel in the hot spots of the kurdish regions without any trouble (except we did put choose our camps rather close to larger settlements ;).
Being American shouldn't be a problem anywhere. I had the impression most people there on't get involved in politics that much... more in tea drinking :)

vielen dank!

Some nice looking water there, thanks for sharing! 9th pic down looks fun.

thanks mag.