"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Hisarcandir Hike - Jan 2024 - Antalya, Turkey

For this trip to Turkey, I was determined to get out into the countryside and on the trails as much as I could. When Tarit told me he felt the same and was going to hire a car, I knew we had the nucleus of a trekking team. On our first outing we were joined by Karteek, Suswara and Rabinath and we headed out of town early in the afternoon to catch a section of the Lycean Way (Likya Yolu). On the steep road out of town towards Hisarcandir, where we hoped to pick up the trail, our fuel light came on (as we'd been hired the car with very little diesel in it) so to avoid the potential hassle of running out of fuel in the hills, I suggested we stop in a layby right there and then and pick up a trail on my maps app that apparently led to the Likya Yolu - a section marked with dotted line so probably quite basic. We all agreed so we pulled over on to the gravel at the side of the road, in a small settlement of half a dozen houses (more like statics) and went into the woods following the line on mapy.cz. Rabinath and I were both navigating on our phones but soon it became obvious there was not much of a trail! There were markers - the usual red/white or red/yellow paint marks on trees and rocks - but there was little evidence of footfall, so the going was slow in the pinewood. That was a challenge, but on the plus-side we had found ourselves a remote and delightful woodland with an untouched feel. It was serene, exotic, filled with interesting trees (some of which looked truly oriental, others more apline). I started to feel the asiatic consciousness of Turkey as we picked our way up the tricky trail, hoping it would soon turn into something easier to follow.

At one point the route got very exposed, the trail hanging right on the edge of a limestone cliff above a forest-covered valley, so we struck inwards from the edge to get a safer line. At this point we had to fan out to find the right line, at one point losing our trail markers and having to head back down the hill. We began to debate the options of soldiering on in the hope we'd hit a decent trail versus picking our way back down, but we were all for pressing on and it was good that we chose to as the landscape got more and more magical as we went deeper into it.

After retracing our steps to get back to the line of paint trail-markings we found ourselves heading down a break in the cliff on a very sketchy path, with some awkward sections picking our way through gulleys and over sharp rocks.

I was concerned about Tarit, knowing he'd had hip surgery a while back and then the recovery from a knee injury sustained in France in the summer to contend with, but there was no need to worry as all his old mountain miles were clearly still in the muscle memory and he got through the technical sections like the pro he is. He didn't take up my offer of a lend of my walking poles, but he did help himself to a handy stick from the woods and use that as a staff to help himself across the gaps.

My watch told me we had covered a mile and it had taken us 65 minutes, so that gives you an idea of the terrain! It seemed to go on endlessly - tough section after tough section, a good challenge for sure - then we came to a slightly easier part as the trail climbed up from a spring and cistern in the middle of the forest and hit a wide fire-road that made the going easy. 

From there on in, after the very testing terrain of the early part of the hike, things were smooth and easy on the wide, soft trail through pine-wooded hillside. The only signs of human presence were the occasional stone trough at a spring and one or two thin pipes snaking their way over the hill, presumably to a farm in the valley. We made a decent pace and covered our loop course easily, arriving back at the hamlet near Hisacandir via a pleasant final section on the road where we saw very little traffic.

So, if you're off to do the Lycean Way, I can recommend the scenery, but be aware that some of the branches of the trail aren't easy to follow and would be quite a handful with a full pack of camping gear. For us, this was an excellent half day's hiking - a chance to get immersed in the Turkish forest and enjoy the silence - except when we were chatting nine to the dozen of course.

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