Ayder Plateau

It is probably raining, or it has just stopped, or it is about to start. Water is the constant here — dripping off tin roofs, running in channels beside the path, hanging in the air as fine mist. The grass underfoot is soaked. Somewhere above you a cowbell knocks slowly as an animal moves across the slope. If you catch a faint smell of sulphur, that is the hot spring, and it is the reason people first came up here.

This is a yayla — a highland summer pasture settlement, occupied for part of the year and left mostly empty for the rest. Ayder sits at roughly 1,350 metres, on a shelf of open grass surrounded by forest that runs up the slopes in every direction. The pattern is old across these mountains. Villages sit low, near the tea and the maize. Animals and their keepers go up in June and come down before snow closes the road.

The drive here is half the point. From Çamlıhemşin the road follows the Fırtına river up a narrow gorge, and Fırtına means storm. The water is loud, pale green and fast. Watch for the old stone bridges crossing it — single arches, steeply humped, narrow enough that two people pass each other with care. Several are still in use. Higher up the valley there are castle ruins on a rock spur, worth a stop on a clear day.

Hot water rises naturally here and has been used for bathing for a long time. There is a thermal bath in the village where the spring water is piped into pools and private cabins. It is genuinely hot, mineral-heavy and slightly smelly, and it is the correct thing to do after a day walking in cold rain. Local families have used these waters for generations. Book ahead in high summer, because the slots fill quickly with Turkish visitors.

The people of these valleys are Hemşin, a group with their own customs, dress and dialect, and a long tradition of migrating for work. Their music runs on the tulum, a bagpipe made from an inflated goatskin with a double reed pipe. It has no drone, which makes it sound sharper and faster than most bagpipes. When it starts, people link arms in a line or a circle and dance the horon — quick, tight steps with the shoulders shaking.

Eat muhlama, also called kuymak. Cornmeal is cooked in butter, then local cheese is stirred in until the mixture goes glossy and pulls into long strings off the spoon. It is served in the pan it was cooked in. Add honey and fresh bread and that is breakfast. Honey from the high plateaus in this province ranks among the most expensive in the country, because the bees work a narrow window of alpine flowers and the volume is small.

Look at how the buildings are made. The traditional pattern is a stone ground floor for animals and storage, a timber upper floor for people, and a wide roof overhang to throw the rain clear of the walls. Then look at what was added later. Concrete blocks went up quickly during the tourism boom, and the plateau lost much of its coherence. A restoration programme has been removing and re-cladding some of that. Judge the results for yourself.

Ayder is the main gateway to the Kaçkar Mountains, a range that rises above 3,900 metres not far east of here. Trails leave from the plateau toward glacial lakes, high pastures and the peaks themselves. This is serious walking country with unreliable weather, and a local guide is a reasonable investment. Brown bears live in the surrounding forest in real numbers. Guides will tell you where they have been feeding recently, and it is worth listening.

The seasonal rhythm still runs. Families come up when the grass is ready, and the plateau fills with people, animals, smoke and noise. Cheese and butter are made here through the summer. In autumn everything goes back down. Winter closes much of the upper valley, though the village itself now stays open and receives snow visitors. If you arrive in late spring, expect closed roads above the plateau and meltwater running everywhere.

Waterfalls come off the slopes all around, some permanent and some appearing only after heavy rain. One near the village drops in a long thin fall that local people compare to a bride's veil. Walk toward it in the morning before the cloud closes in. The path is muddy in any season. Nettles grow along the edges of it, so long trousers are a practical choice rather than a cautious one.

In midsummer the plateaus above hold festivals. People come up for a day of music, dancing and eating in the open, on wet grass, in weather that would cancel the same event anywhere else. These gatherings are local rather than staged for visitors, and outsiders are generally made welcome. The music runs late and there is no printed schedule. Ask at your guesthouse about dates, because they move around and are rarely advertised outside the valley.

Before you go, walk a little way out of the village at dusk and stop. The forest starts abruptly at the edge of the grass. Cloud comes down the slope in slow sheets, then thins, then comes again. You will hear water in several directions and a bell somewhere behind you. Nothing here is dramatic in a single moment. It accumulates. Stand still long enough and the plateau will make its case without any help.