NOTE: this blog suffers from technical problems. This is the third day in the hotel and I have yet to complete a simple blog post. I ask myself why bother.  Come see the slide show next winter. i am done with trying to use crappy computers. So be warned, it starts out ok, but then it drops off.  When I discovered that 6 pictures with text had disappeared, I knew it was time to quit. I advise you to check bikingaroundagain.com Unfortunately, you can´t access this story until after August 1, since Bryan prefers delayed posting. Subscribe to his blog and get the story when it goes online.

The Story in Pictures

For  14 days without a break, we climbed  up and over three mountain ranges, trekked to the highest peak in the Katchkar Mountains, experienced hail storms and lightning, impassable mud, hallucinatory fog, freezing  nights, broiling days, ridiculous meadows and faultless Turkish hospitality. What a blast!

It took three days riding and two days walking to reach the Katchkar Mountain, visible from our camp here at 2400 meters. We hid in a low spot during the pelting hail and overhead thunderbolts before descending for hours through ever-changing biozones and terrain features.

 We followed a mountain bike route marked on a tourist map. No Turkish tourists would follow this route.

 Two hours and several portages later, we finished de-impacting the wheels and retraced our way 30 meters back to our last fork in the road.

The road more traveled, the one we took, the one with half a dozen cars per day, led to the most spectacular, thousand meter descent ever, leveling out at the Choruh River.  Hours and hours descending. It was only paved for the last two hours.

We rode 1200 meters up to start our trek. Chesmes are ubiquitous along this route. A cheshme is a spring that has been developed. The are often memorials. We never filter the water from them.



2800 meters.  Bukla has a base camp here. They let us use their ice axes.

Happy  to be on the way up on foot for a change!



 Our evening lake camp was at 3400 meters.




We just got the tent situated within the rock walled windbreak when the lightning first flashed. Thunder followed instantly and the idling storm pelted hail down on our little shelter for two hours. 10 centimeters deep.



I stopped at 3500 meters and took pictures while Bryan contınued climbing to the 3900 meter summit.





I prefer grass and flowerson my hikes. I climbed a trekking peak the next day.



Bryan rested here by the yala (high pasture)  houses. Some cows came by. The women shepherds came up ın the evenıng to tend them.



The next day we clımbed and clımbed.



The white asphalt was blinding.

It got so steep even Bryan had to push.

We camped in the middle of the road.

We didn´t expect anyone coming over the pass any time soon.

The next morning we reached the avalanched-on road. We kicked steps into the snow to give us traction.

And then we pushed. Both  of us. Bryan held my bike so I could get the shot.

Once we were up, we thought the left skyline road would take us down. Wrong. And we never suspected that the right side switchbacks were discontinuous. We spent four hours the next day circumnavigating the hidden cirque just behind the  tracked slope of the deep green ridge.

We had convinced ourselves we were on the main road when we took the left road. It dropped over 100 meters, but petered out. It was so pretty down here that we decided to camp. That's the beauty of bike touring without a timeline or a destination.  It' very easy to change your plan ıf you don't have one.

Riding the rim of the sky, the next morning, looking for the way down.



Climbing back up the next morning to take the correct fork. (this picture precedes the preceding one. I have had it with non-Mac computers!)



We enjoyed learning about the shepherds' lives in the giant, hidden cirque. Their goats thrive in the high pastures. If they aren´t lost in the fog. Cowbells are required.