How to get there:
The closest town is Yuksekova with flights from Istanbul.
Take the main road (D-400) heading north-east. You will soon have
a lake on your right hand side. Continue (uphill) past this lake and take
a minor road that forks left at location N37.69971, E44.39856. This road
runs up the valley. It is rough (dirt) and high clearance is recommended.
The road crosses the creek in several locations, in August 2025, these
crossings where all pretty smooth and easy. There are several forks, stay
in the main valley until near the end. We climbed slightly on the right near the
end and parked at location N37.73344, E44.35448, elevation near 2500 meter.
Route description:
We followed small trails, many most likely animal tracks as we gained elevation
while traversing left. Gaining elevation, we crossed below some cliffs before heading
more uphill to reach a plateau with more gentle terrain. The obvious route from here
is to stay well below the ridge (on your right), then ascend a scree slope, before turning
more left to gain the summit. See our descent route, upper part as posted on Peakbagger.
We descended down a valley/route more east (see track), this was also a pretty nice route with
various trails connecting all the way. This route may also be used as a route of ascent.
A track is posted on Peakbagger.
Comments:
We started from my hotel in Yuksekova in the morning. The drive to the smaller turn-off road
is fairly short. The valley road is rougher, but not in any way terrible. We were parked
and ready to go at 0820. Keeping a good pace, we quickly ascended and reached the more gentle
section. From here, the easy and best route to the
summit would be straight ahead (see above).
However my guide/driver ascended the easy slope up (climbers) right in order to reach
the main ridge. On the map, with all smooth contours, this ridge looked quite reasonable.
However, the ridge was rather narrow in a few spots and there were several ups and downs as we
made progress, but much slower than before.
The ridge had a class 3 scrambling spot leading to
a local summit and descending looked hard. Going right, we did find a way to scramble down in
order to make progress. I will guess that traversing this ridge took at least 30 minutes more
than just staying below it.
We reached the summit at 1200 - Noon, so 3:40 up.
A nice summit and good weather. We had a small snack and some water/pepsi - then a general relaxing
rest. Leaving after 30 minutes, we took the easier way down. Next, we picked a different route
back down (see track). This was quite efficient and we reached the car in 1:50.
