Turkey’s Kaçkar Mountains: Unspoiled land of alpine adventure
The Kaçkars offer some of the best hiking in Turkey.
The Kaçkar mountain range rises above the Black Sea coast in northeast Turkey. Google Earth Studio
Taller than the Appalachians. Twice as long as the Pyrenees. The Kaçkar Mountains are one of Turkey’s biggest national parks — and one of its best-kept secrets.
But you can’t hide a 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) mountain range forever. Word is getting out about this unspoiled wonderland, so CNN took a road trip to explore its treasures.
The Kaçkar Mountains run along the coastline of the Black Sea in the northeast corner of Turkey, close to the border with Georgia.
Rize–Artvin Airport, opened in 2022, has made it easier for international visitors to tour the region, from Karadeniz’s sandy beaches right up to the Kaçkars’ rocky peaks.
From soaring green hills to wildflower valleys to autumn foliage and snowy slopes, there are fresh delights with every season and plenty of outdoor activities to enjoy, from hiking to ziplining to skiing.
The villagers who call these mountains home live in close harmony with nature, continuing traditional ways of life unchanged for decades or sometimes centuries. This is truly a land of milk and honey, with the organic alpine produce here some of the finest food in the country.
Nature
Enjoy stunning landscapes all to yourself.
Some roads aren't for the faint-hearted.
While the 887-mile-long (1,427 kilometers) Black Sea Coastal Road makes zipping through the region’s seaside towns a breeze, the helter-skelter, single-lane tracks that switch back up into the mountains make for an often challenging drive. The rewards, however, are abundant.
Fresh turns in the road reveal breathtaking vistas and cloud-wreathed panoramas. You can skip driving yourself by traveling with a tour group. Aptly named guide Alp Demirkaya, of Endemic Tours, leads us on a hike through the Çamlıhemşin district, starting at Avusor, a village at 7,875 feet (2,400 meters) elevation.
In these rain-rich lands, the greenly carpeted mountains dotted with wildflowers including crocuses and rhododendrons could be straight out of “The Sound of Music.” It’s “the highlands, the villages, the mountains, the view, the climate” that makes it uniquely Kaçkar, says Demirkaya. “The weather can change in five or 10 minutes. You can live four seasons in one day.”
The mountains change from muted greens and browns to explosions of rich reds and emerald as we climb through rain, a shimmering rainbow, blazing sunshine and then a heavy creeping fog. This volatile weather adds a little zing of peril to traversing this region, whether by car, bike or foot – so expect the unexpected.
We pluck berries as we go. Strawberries appear in May and June, while later in the season there are raspberries and blackberries. When we visit in September the leaves of the copious blueberry bushes have turned a gorgeous russet.
Our hike ends at Buyuk Gol glacial lake, in the shadow of 11,686-foot (3,562-meter) Kemerli Kaçkar, the range’s second-highest peak. Paddleboarding on the absinthe-green waters, in the mountains’ cool embrace, you may feel like the only people on the planet, soaking in the full awe of the sublime.
“Even if I don’t have groups, I can come here alone. I sit on a stone. I can stay here two or three hours. I can cry here. You and just God, the view, the clouds, the blue sky, the mountains.”
Alp Demirkaya, tour guide
An annual mountain bike race at Flora Handüzü Resort has attracted competitors from across Turkey and beyond.
When the sun comes out, the mountains and river are alive with color. Maureen O'Hare/CNN
Homes are perched high up on the dramatic slopes.
The challenging journey to the waterfall is part of the adventure. daphnusia/Getty Images
Our next adventure takes us to nature reserve Handüzü plateau, where the road climbs past vertiginous tea plantations until we are right above the clouds.
An annual mountain bike race has attracted competitors from across Turkey and neighboring countries, all eager to take on these tough rocky slopes – and the extra challenge of thick fog.
Next we head east to Artvin province, where the thickly forested valleys were sculpted by the powerful Çoruh river system, popular with whitewater kayakers and rafters. Impressively huge hydroelectric dams are a common sight along the drive.
The gorgeous green slopes of the Macahel Valley are split between Turkey and Georgia and the Turkish side is the country’s only UNESCO biosphere reserve.
The Camili biosphere reserve is made up of three main valleys and is surrounded by mountains on three sides.
The 207-foot-tall (63 meters) Maral Waterfall is one of the tallest in the country and one of the valley’s most splendid sights. Be aware that it’s a tricky climb down to the bottom, and of course, you’ll also have to make your way back up.
Food
Home-cooked meals with local food producers.
Beekeeper Hasan Kutluata at work on his hives.
Beekeeping is a serious business in the Kaçkar Mountains. The region is home to both the world’s most expensive honey – Elvish, harvested in the caves of Artvin – and to the elusive deli bal, or “mad honey,” with psychoactive properties.
Harvesting Elvish, which goes for $1,500 a bottle, involves a day-long hike to the remote caves that provide an ideal microclimate for honey production as well as protecting the bees from pollution. As for deli bal, beekeeper Hasan Kutluata has the scars to prove the challenges involved.
“Fighting bears is really difficult,” says Kutluata, who in 2003 was attacked by a bear who had overindulged on the honey, which contains the active ingredient grayanotoxin from the purple rhododendron flower. His hives are built on metal-wrapped stilts to stop bears from climbing up to the sweet treat above.
Kutluata lives a short distance from Arılı Köyü – “Village of the Bees” – in Fındıklı district, named for hazelnuts, another important product of the region. Most of the world’s hazelnuts come from Turkey.
The multitude of local flora the bees feast upon, the mountain altitude, and the absence of industry, settlements or pollution all contribute to the high quality of this purest of organic honeys.
The presence of grayanotoxin shows itself with a warm heat in the throat. When eaten in moderation, no more than a spoonful or two a day, the honey is reputed to have multiple health benefits. Kutluata’s mother tells us she often takes a spoonful to help lower her blood pressure. The family serves it to us mixed with butter, an indulgent delight on fresh-baked bread.
“When I’m feeling down, I go to the bees. When I’m stressed or feeling troubled from work or the outside world, I go to the bees. I open the hive, take care of them, and I feel peaceful and happy. And all my stress and troubles disappear.”
Hasan Kutluata, beekeeper
Strong hands are needed for milking.
Sevda Iyem turns milk into delicious cheeses.
The Turkish are, by some estimates, the world’s biggest consumers of tea per capita, but it’s another much-loved local elixir we seek when we visit Sevda Iyem’s guesthouse in the Macahel Valley.
As dawn rises over the valley, we’re up early to join in with the milking in what has to be one of the world’s most scenically positioned cow sheds.
Iyem’s four dairy cows provide us with enough milk to make five kilos of cheese, which her guests will devour in about a week.
“I love that they enjoy it so much. I’ve never had anyone say they didn’t like the food. So, it’s a very nice feeling,” says Iyem, who prepares a full home-cooked and home-produced spread of Turkish and Georgian specialties for her guests, morning and evening.
Sevda Iyem makes cheese using traditional machinery and methods, an arduous process needing strong hands and arms. “I do it every morning. If I didn’t enjoy it, I’d never do it. It would be torture. But I do it with great love.”
People
The people of the Kaçkars are warm, hospitable and hard-working.
Corn cobs hung out to dry are a common sight.
“Maden village, which used to be called Bazgiret, is the most authentic village in this region. All the houses are wooden,” explains photographer Murat Güngüt, whose work celebrates traditional ways of life in the Kaçkars.
“The people living here are from Georgian descent and from a photographer’s perspective, this culture is very appealing.”
Here, high in the mountains of Şavşat, right next to the border with Georgia, the industrious and welcoming villagers go about their business as they might have a century ago. Elderly women walk uphill laden with time-worn farming tools, one even holds an errant cat in her spare hand.
Women are traditionally the center of the home in this region, taking the lead on an array of domestic and farming tasks.
Potatoes are dug, cows are tended, and a cornucopia of fruit hangs ripe from the trees. A family hosts us in their home, walls insulated with hanging kilim rugs, with a meal of new potatoes and mulama, Black Sea cheese fondue.
The houses are built in the traditional style, the living area high on stilts with an eave-protected barn below, once used for livestock but now more commonly for storing firewood or drying hay.
The population of 150 or so villagers is small and getting smaller. The way of life is hard here and younger people are choosing life in the cities.
We end our visit by driving up to the very roof of the mountains to witness a spectacular pink sunset over the peaks of Turkey and Georgia.
The Kaçkar Mountains are largely untouched and there are few buildings interrupting the rolling landscape, but there are still a few notable landmarks to be found. The ninth-century Tbeti monastery, unusually made of stone in the lush surroundings of Cevizli village in Şavşat, is an example of the cultural diversity of the region, having over the years been used as both a Christian and Islamic center.
Farther west, in the Macahel Valley, we head down a winding mountain road to visit the wooden mosque at Maral. Unassuming from the outside, inside it’s a carnival of color, with the dyes for the cheerful reds and turquoise blues all made from local tree roots.
The building itself is made of chestnut wood, and not a single nail was used in its construction. It’s a traditional technique known as p, or wolf throat, where all the pieces interlock.
Farther west again, in Çamlıhemşin’s Fırtına Valley, or Storm Valley, the medieval Zilkale castle perches dramatically on a cliff at 3,707 feet (1,130 meters) elevation.
It’s a fairytale sight, but for a more typical understanding of life in the district we visit Avusor, a seasonal yayla village in the Highlands, at an elevation of 7,874 feet (2,400 meters). Locals only live here in the summer months to tend their livestock before the snow arrives, then they descend to the towns below.
Going back two or three centuries or more, “all the people in the Black Sea region were living in the mountains, in the villages and the highlands because of safety, because all the enemies could come from the sea,” explains the guide Alp Demirkaya, who runs Endemic Tours. “Geography is suitable for this.”
Guide Alp Demirkaya and CNN's Christina Macfarlane hiking in Çamlıhemşin.
In the Kaçkars you can reflect on the awesome power of nature.
This is Demirkaya’s homeland and he’s been working as a guide here for 21 years. His connection to the landscape is deeply personal.
On August 17, 1999, he was here visiting his grandparents when one of Turkey’s deadliest earthquakes of modern times struck, killing his parents and two siblings in Istanbul. “They saved my life, these mountains.”
We hike with him to Buyuk Gol glacial lake, just beneath the majestic peak of the 3,562-meter Kemerli Kaçkar. “Normally we reach here, local people, we shout at the mountains. Shall we do it together?,” he asks.
We breathe deep and holler, our whoops echoing and bouncing onwards and upwards to the rocky heights above.
The air is pure, the wind is fresh and a creeping mist is gathering to accompany us on our downward journey. “I love my job.” says Demirkaya. “Being here, guiding here, it’s much more. I can't explain it.”
