Antalya

Well, dear readers, we have made it to the lovely city of Antalya, Turkey. Located in southwestern Turkey, during the warmer months Antalya is a huge tourist town, with its ample beaches, archeological sites, and regular events. Despite being “winter” here, to us the weather is just about perfect. Stepping off the plane last Friday from Istanbul to Antalya felt like we were traveling from Michigan in January to Florida.

Planeside-view of the mountains of central-west Turkey. Note the snow.

After a short stop at the grocery store to pick up some essential food items, we arrived at our destination. Our exact location is not Antalya, but a small town called Geyikbayiri located 40 kilometers inland from Antalya. We are staying at a small, well-maintained campground/hostel called “Climbers Garden”, which is located literally less than a five-minute walk from most cliffs. There are climbers here from all over the world, and the atmosphere is really friendly and welcoming. The Hilleberg Nallo 2, the tent pictured below, is our home here. Climbers Garden has a restaurant (complete with a view all the way to the ocean), communal kitchen, common area, and bathing facilities.

So spacious for its weight: Hilleberg Nallo 2.


Climbers Garden, with a view of the cliffs in the background

Why did the climber cross the road?

We have worked our way into a nice routine, and man, the sport climbing lifestyle is certainly an easy one. We wake up leisurely (often after getting a good 8-10 hours of sleep), eat breakfast, and head to the cliffs. The weather averages in the 50's, and our first two days here we found ourselves climbing without our shirts on (I remained in a sports bra, of course). This is one of the reasons why we chose to come here.

Max, hard at work

Our evenings are quite arduous, with our single task being that of cooking dinner. To allow more time for each of us to read, use the computer, or generally get things done, we switch off who cooks and cleans every other night. Our dinners so far have been superb. The Sunday market has lots of produce, dried fruit, nuts, and eggs, and yesterday we carried back 30 lbs of goodies. Our Turkish is minimal (only consisting of “Teshekirler” (thank you) and “Brakma” (don’t give up – commonly yelled to encourage a fellow climber)), and much of our market experience required counting on our fingers, pointing, and nodding.

View of the snowy mountains

Turkey's limestone is exactly what we've been waiting for. There are steep orange and yellow walls with drippy tufa formations (a tufa is limestone rib formation that protrudes from the wall which can sometimes fit within the pinching grasp of a climber's hand), that allow knee-bars (a knee bar is a precise foot-knee jamming movement that shifts weight from your upper body to the leg), drop knees (a drop knee is when you twist your knee from an upward pointing position to a downward pointing position, this can move your hips in closer to the wall) and other creative moves not commonly found on rock within America. Our first few days have been brutalizing. The steep rock demands good endurance- something neither of us currently has. And my fingertips are definitely feeling the difference between Turkey limestone and Michigan plastic. In another week or two we should be back in shape and more used to the style of climbing. As for routes, we've been sticking to steep moderates in the 6's and low 7's (click here for grade conversion chart).