Day 18. Beycik to yayla kuzdere

Definetly the toughest walk due to 4 hours of ascent and high altitude.

Morning view. We climbed 3,725 feet ~1,300 meters in 4 hours to get to the "saddle" of mount Olympos (tahtali dagi) with Nikki and Michal. We were starting out at ~1000 meters in Beycik.

That's the peak ahead, the climb started slow. 

That's the view below. Should we or shouldn't we go to the top of that mountain? This was the topic of conversation for a couple of hours last night and some during the long slow climb to the saddle.

There was a ladder to climb to a tea shop two thirds of the way up the mountain.

We loved referring to the saddle even though at first had no idea what it exactly was.

Sweet tasting spring water, plumbed through a tree trunk by a very creative tea shop owner. We emptied our water bottles that contained tap water and refilled them with the spring water. It wasn't until that evening that Sawsan realized she had another full 1.5L bottle of water in her backpack that she had been lugging up and down the mountains.

And also a fountain.

We had fresh squeezed orange juice and caught our breathe before the last push to the saddle.

We're getting closer, and also out of breathe.

We had lunch at the saddle,  a white bread sandwich never tasted so good and with all the excitement I didn't actually take any photos. Sawsan and I decided not to tackle the additional 1,700 feet of scree to the summit, we still  had a few km to go through yayla kuzdere. So it was a quick farewell to Nikki and Michal who were up for the climb. They had been in Cirali for two months staring at the summit.

The beginning of a descent back to 1000 meters.

Mostly on logging roads, sadly we lost the Lycian way, as new logging roads bullodoze through the footpath. Once again we were saved by the Lycian way app and gps. It was a longer route but less steep. Another bonus of this route was the huge plane tree, probably a few thousand years old.

Shortly after we found the Lycian way for the last hour downhill to Abla Sevim's (big sister) house. 

So happy to see the red and white waymark of the Lycian way, if a little faint on a water source.

We made it at 6:30 pm to find some grinkos aka 5 Englishmen taking photographs of the mountains with big cameras. So it was an entertaining home cooked dinner hearing tales of the Englishmen who had been going on annual walking holidays together for the last 20 years.

Alba's oven in the morning with the empties where she cooked dinner.

They were traveling in the opposite direction for 7 days and had just completed their 2nd day of walking.

Once I sat down that evening I couldn't get back up for a couple of hours, but the aches are all good ones. Alba's house was full so she gave up her bedroom for Sawsan and I, there are no other pansysion in this village.