The three boys were staring at Muffin in a mixture of gratitude (this was the animal that was going to save them the considerable effort of carrying their heavy rucksacks), bemusement (they’d never been in such close proximity to a beast of burden before -- didn’t we invent trucks and stuff to carry weighty loads) and apprehension (to “kick like a mule” was an expression even they had heard before).



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Ferdi, the katırcı or mule driver we’d employed to ferry our gear up to Dilberdüzü (base camp for ascents of the highest peak in the Kaçkar Mountains), was busy tying our backpacks and a huge (the boys were not going to put up with semi-cooked lentil soup again) and unwieldy box of food to Muffin, who was swishing his tail and gazing around with an air of resignation. It’s possible that our mule really was called Muffin, though unlikely. How many people in Yaylalar, the mountain village where our trek was to commence, had been fans of a long-running BBC children’s television show in which an amiable puppet-mule called Muffin was the star? Especially given that the show was first broadcast in 1946 -- decades before TV reached these remote parts. The name Muffin was our affectation, but our hired mule wasn’t offended we’d named him after a puppet. As we were soon to discover, as long as he had plenty of water to drink and grass to graze on, he was a happy little mule.
The backpack-free trek up the aptly if uninspiringly named Büyük Deresi (Big Valley) was a pleasure after the slog up to the Black Lake. We could only pity (though I did catch Jake and Luke looking rather smug on occasions) the fellow trekkers we passed en route, laden down with enormous backpacks, but excused our apparent sloth. After all, our boys were younger than the other trekkers, Steve and I considerably older -- and most of them were young Israelis who had, no doubt, just completed their military service; to them carting 25 kilogram backpacks up steep gradients was a stroll in the park. “We’re on more familiar territory now,” commented Steve, as we followed a clear path threading its way up the valley floor. What he meant was that the scenery was reminiscent of England’s Lake District or the Scottish Highlands, the valley sides carpeted in flower-studded, cropped grass lower down, before giving way to scree, crags and pinnacles higher up. We drank from the mountain streams tumbling down from the slopes, examined a fat, green frog, admired a bevy of pale blue butterflies and generally thoroughly enjoyed our hike. “Mules are cool,” remarked Jake, his shoulders, still smarting from the exertions at the Black Lake, now blissfully load free.

Dilberdüzü, a grassy meadow nearly 3,000 meters above sea level at the head of the valley, was luxury compared to the night at Black Lake. We feasted like kings on pasta in fresh tomato sauce sprinkled with the delicious local cheese and watched as the Şeytan Kayları (Devil’s Rocks) towering above us to the west turned red as the sunset. Then, as the air cooled and lounging outside our tents became untenable, there were two options -- sleep or cards and then sleep. So, despite having played Black Maria for around 30 hours of the 36-hour rail journey from İstanbul to Erzurum, we found ourselves crammed in a two-man tent attempting to play Black Jack by torchlight. As we played, we discussed the plan for the next day. According to the guidebook the round-trip to the summit from Dilberdüzü takes around 10 hours. “That’s more than we did to Black Lake,” said Luke. “No way.” Jake agreed and Steve eventually decided that it would be pushing things for him too -- it was close on 2,000 meters of ascent and even without a full pack that would be tough going. That left my eldest, Doug, and me.

We left at 3:45 a.m. the following morning. Not only was it still dark, it was misty. We soon lost the path and emerged on the wrong side a line of crags cutting across the moraine leading up to our initial destination, Deniz Gölü (Sea Lake), a cirque lake en route to the summit. I was thinking about giving up, especially as the Kaçkar is notorious for sudden whiteouts, when thick-mist rolls in and reduces visibility to zero. Luckily, we spotted a group of climbers away to the west who were clearly on the right path. We cut across the scree to join them and rather guiltily tagged on to the party. We needn’t have worried; you’d be hard pushed to meet a friendlier bunch -- all members of Kartal Dağcilık ve Spor Kulübü (the Kartal Mountaineering and Sports Club) from İstanbul. Luckily we soon climbed above the level of the mist and made great progress past the beautiful blue waters of the alpine lake, up to a pass, across a snowfield and then onto a rock band. Above here it was trickier, the entire steep slope leading up to the summit a jumbled mass of shattered granite blocks. But make it we did and after shaking hands with our newfound mates, gazed at the 360 degree panorama below us from Kaçkar summit -- at 3,932 meters, the fifth-highest in Turkey. Having been thwarted by a lightening storm agonizingly close to the summit on a previous attempt in 1990, I never thought I’d one day be there with my son.

Back down at the lake we met up with Steve, Luke and Jake, looking considerably fresher than Doug and myself after their leisurely start and a relatively easy ascent. Much to my surprise the guys from Kartal were stripping off and diving into the lake. In Antalya, where I spend most of the year, the locals think the balmy waters of the Mediterranean are not swimmable until July. Yet here were a group of Turks plunging into the freezing, snow-edged waters of Sea Lake, 3,425 meters above sea level. Laughing, they waved for me to follow suit. To say it was cold is an understatement and I’ve never swum as fast in my life as I did to get out of those icy depths. Younger and wiser, Doug watched his old man wryly and wondered at the impetuousness of incipient old age.

Muffin, who’d left us shortly after our arrival at Düpedüzü was back the following morning as arranged. Fortunately he’d remembered to bring his owner, Ferdi, and we were soon retracing our steps down the valley to Olgunlar. At the confluence of the valley leading to the summit and another leading to the major pass over the range to Ayder and the Black Sea, this tiny hamlet has a monopoly on passing trekkers. We filled up on the local delicacy of muhlama (a kind of cheese fondu) before heading to our next night’s camp at Düpedüzü, at the foot of the Naletleme Pass. Once again we were left to our own devices for the night as Muffin headed back down to the bright lights of Yaylalar. Perhaps he knew about the mosquitoes which were to plague our early evening, before it got too cold for them to bother feasting on our flesh.

But Muffin was back early the next morning (he had to be, it was payday today and he was looking forward to spending his hard-earned gains on carrots and oats) and soon we were heading up and over the scree-coated, snow-streaked Naletleme Pass. It was entirely predictable, given the weather patterns in the Kaçkar, that we were enveloped in dense mist around midday as we crossed the watershed to the northern side of the range. Bidding a fond farewell to the reliable Ferdi in Yukarı Kavron, we watched sadly as the faithful Muffin led his driver through the mist and back up the mountain toward home. The teenagers amongst us tried to suppress their glee at the end of the trekking stage of the adventure -- for them the fleshpots of Ayder and Trabzon awaited, where Internet cafes lurked around every corner, you slept in a hotel rather than a tent and washed in a shower rather than a stream.

We enjoyed Ayder, even though the weather was (again predictably) wet and misty, as its wonderful hot springs were just what our grubby, aching bodies needed. Trabzon, a port city which appears to have turned its back on the sea, isn’t everybody’s cup of tea (even though nearby Rize, which we passed through en route from Ayder) is the country’s tea-growing capital. But anywhere in Turkey where the locals are passionate about their hometown football team rather than following Beşiktaş, Galatasaray or Fenerbahçe can’t be all bad -- and it boasts the nation’s finest Byzantine church outside of İstanbul, the Aya Sofya (which we cajoled, with some effort, the boys into visiting). We even managed to persuade them to visit the famed Sümela Monastery in the hills behind the city. “Was it a good trip, then?” Steve asked his son on our last night. Luke, put on the spot, looked a little uncomfortable. “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied -- praise indeed by teen standards.


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Guides: “The Kaçkar: Trekking in Turkey’s Black Sea Mountains” by Kate Clow; www.upcountryturkey.com