We haven’t been on a hot rock bolt clipping holiday for ages, so when we heard Elsie was planning on going to Geyikbayiri near Antalya, Turkey, with her friend Koon we decided to crash their party. We know a few people who have been before, so we knew the rock would be excellent.
Koon had organised our accommodation in the village of Geyikbayiri. We are staying at Nancy’s B&B which provides an excellent base close by to the climbing. Nancy is an excellent host and provides great entertainment.
Despite our late arrival on Sunday night, and Elsie and Koon’s even later arrival in the early hours of Monday morning, we got up with great expectation on Monday to glorious blue skies, and a hot, hot sun. Oh, yes, too hot for many, but my sun starved soul said bring it on!
Our first venues were Left Cave Sol and Heart Sag, two of the crags opposite JoSiTo campsite, where we managed a few warm up routes to get used to the rock. How more perfect can it be, 5 minutes walk in, fantastic climbing, no queues, and only 5 minutes back to the bar where a lovely cold beer was waiting for us at only €2.50.
Knowing the real hard nuts get up early, climb in the cool morning, have a siesta in the heat of midday, and climb again in the evening, we decided not to bother with all that, so we didn’t set our alarm, we got up late, had a leisurely breakfast, and made or way to our venue for our second day, Kebap Sol, just as the sun was getting super hot.
Again, another fantastic day. Another quiet venue, but amazingly we met up with some familiar CC members, Chris and Mike Simpkins, and we shared a few stories before lunch.
Wednesday was forecasted to be rainy with thunder in the afternoon, so we decided to drive to Olympos so we could catch some sight seeing if the rain got too heavy. Olympos is about 80km away from Antalya, so we easily got there within an hour and a half.
We drove down to Cirali and parked near the beach and made our way towards Cennet Sag. This was quite a steep crag, and we knew we wouldn’t exactly be ticking all the routes, but there was enough to test us. We had the place to ourselves.
The most adventurous part of the day was getting across a small river estuary where Poseidon was in a particularly cheeky mood.
After dodging the rain showers and climbing a few routes we visited Chimaera. According to some legends, the Olympic Flame was first brought from the eternal flames that came from the dead body of Chimaera, slain by Bellerophontes with the help of Pegasus. Who knows, I heard the Olympic flame came from Olympia in Greece!?! Anyway, as I had already held one of the 2012 Olympic Torches, I thought it was appropriate to check out the flame.
Here’s the location of the eternal flame of the Chimaera…
On Thursday we went to Alabalik Balkon, another crag in Geyikbayiri, and another glorious setting. As we climbed we debated where our favourite bolt clipping destinations were, and I couldn’t think of anywhere better. We were sat in the shade of some trees, looking out towards the mountains, with the gentle flow of the stream and singing birds providing a continuous background rhythm to the occasional grunts and roars of the athletic climbers failing on the 8c’s.
Series - Gerikbayiri
- Turkish Bolt Clipping
- Kizlar nerede?
- Gerikbayiri – a summary
Wow… sounds like heaven (well it would do if you were running instead of climbing :-)). You’ll be pleased to know that it’s raining here.
😉
I think you’d have a great holiday here running. There are loads of goat tracks all over the place with historical ruins just dotted around. It’s a very unexplored area.
Rachel- it was heaven 🙂 but please stop talking about running you are making me feel lazy!
Told you you’d enjoy it 😛
Incidentally, there is a very long mountaineering up the big mountain behind you in piccy 4
With all that sunshine I am in danger of being jealous. It is only the lack of cake that is saving me 😉
We’ve had hardly any cake this holiday 😯 😯 😯 . Will have to make up for it when we get home.
Looks fab!
Brilliant trip, but I am feeling the pain of 7 days climbing in a row now!
Looks like you didn’t really fight for the routes with anyone else. Was it really as abandoned as it seems from the pictures?
It was very quiet, but apparently the week before it was very busy coinciding with the Easter holidays.
Just saw the brilliant pics gang & postings.
it’s 37 degs today. can u believe it, i saw a rope on the crags on the way up with a burnt piece of toast on the end which I imagine was once a person! going to hit the mountains in the morn as i can still see snow at the top..
Thx Koon I finnished my SMB project which was well recieved in Dubia at the same time I finished the bacon. ***************Nanc
ps nobody refered to me as entertaining before as it is usualy excentric!
:star: Thank you for lovely photos and trip advices 🙂 Always good to know where to stay! :clap: