East of Istanbul – Şile to Izmit

In June 2021, Nick Hobbs and a small team (Oytun, Tasha, Fatemah) from Hiking Istanbul explored a route crossing the area between Şile and Yağcılar (north-south) in order to find a route which could complete this segment of the Via Eurasia.

This supplements a route from Anadolu Kavağı to Şile, and together these routes will form the Via Eurasia between the Bosphorus and Izmit province.

Day 1 started in Şile and finished at Tekkeköy, sleeping at Hasanlı, where the muhtar had organised a room. (24km). The team planned to walk to Hasanlı (28km), but the route proved too difficult, after a fairly late start. En route they swam in the Darlık reservoir.

Day 2 started at Hasanlı and finished at Kargalı waterfalls, camping near the falls. (22km). Day 2 was exhausting and needs to be split into two sections – probably somewhere near the provincial border.

Day 3 started at the waterfalls and ended in the valley at Yargılar, where the muhtar organised the imam’s accommodation adjoining the mosque. (9.5km) This was a very difficult day in spite of the short distance, as so much of the route was through thickets and bushes. In this area, we crossed many streams and in some seasons or after rain, it could be even more difficult.

Day 4 was spent in checking out local sites and beauty spots by car. (6.5km)

The weather was perfect throughout and flowers were abundant.

The navigation of the route was complex, because the hills and valleys running in every possible direction – some streams flow north to the Black Sea, some south to the Marmara. There are no rivers but plenty of streams and pools, all of which (reservoirs apart) can be crossed without great difficulty (in dry weather at least; it would be a very different story in wet weather). From Şile, the team headed almost due south till we met the existing route from Kocaeli (planned by a team from the Hoşgörü Way), then continued along the route following a very wiggly southeast line to Yağcılar via Kargalı waterfalls.

Once out of Şile, the altitude averaged between about 150 m and 350 m – no big hills but quite a lot of up and downing till the waterfalls, after which the route is much flatter (yet harder).

Exhaustion – all of us had our freakout moments during days 2 or 3.

Dehydration – all of us ran out of water during the later part of day 2 and for all of day 3. There are no fountains between Hasanlı and Yağcılar so we had to drink stream water.

Falls – we walked quite a lot over large rounded rocks on and around stream beds, and often they were covered by tall grass, and that made placing our feet slow and tricky; we just had our quota of bruises, scratches, grazes, shoulder and leg aches, and bug bites to contend with.

Ticks – we each had a couple of ticks during the trip (a tick itself isn’t dangerous, the Lyme disease it may carry is)

Difficulties:

To my mind, the fundamental difficulty with this route is the trade off between travelling light and having to sleep out, and even when we could sleep in villages, we still needed mats and sleeping bags (the communal spaces we slept in are rarely used and little maintained). I love hiking when travelling light, even over difficult terrain. When toting camping or even just sleeping gear, I find it rather less of a pleasure, and these three days pushed all of us to our edge, to the point where it becomes a battle even while walking through very beautiful countryside. On the third day we ended up taking frequent breaks just to be able to go on at all. Three of us didn’t carry tents or bivvy bags, just mats and sleeping bags, and that worked fine for overnighting in good weather (it wouldn’t be fine in wet weather; also boars may snaffle your food if it’s not shut inside a tent). But it still meant that our backpacks were too heavy for the demands of the route.

Taking lighter backpacks would mean not taking sleeping bags but that wouldn’t work either for sleeping rough nor in the villages. Carrying a tent and cooking things adds a couple of kilos and that’s a lot when less than that’s already a lot. I don’t have a ready answer – I’d love to walk this route again but travelling lighter, but then how to sleep without getting cold… (the nights were on the chilly side). And bear in mind that the four of us are all experienced hikers with a better than average level of fitness – and none of us was carrying more than needed.

Background:

Landscape & geology:

There’s no sudden difference between Istanbul and Kocaeli provinces but the trend over the three days was to more green overall and to rockier, more isolated valleys. The Kargalı valleys are fairly wide gorges with rocky bottoms and rocky sides. The altitude range is similar to the countryside we hike in around Istanbul but the villages in this region are further apart and higher up and there’s very little agriculture apart from forestry.

Natural history:

Trees – All the forest we walked through over these three days is deciduous – mostly oak and beech I think. Some of the trees were old – one particular oak looked like it was over 500 years old, and there were other old trees by the streams from time to time. There was very little smilax and only sporadic brambles but quite a lot of hawthorn and other thorny trees, and lots of heather, often forming thickets over the hardly-used paths which made making our way a tiring struggle. Sometimes, secateurs were essential. The heather made me cough a lot more than it ever has previously. Village mulberries in fruit. Unripe crab-apples. Unripe walnuts. Unripe hazelnuts. Unripe plums.

Flowers – There were a great many flowers, mostly familiar ones but lovely in their profusion and variety.

Notable bugs – Butterflies, dragonflies, horseflies and ticks.

Reptiles and amphibians – Several snakes (brown and black); including a swimming snake that had just caught a frog; the poor frog bleated as it was slithered to its demise. Frogs (if only they could be a little quieter in the middle of the night…). Some lizards. A good number of tortoises. A couple of turtles.

Birds – Lots of songbirds, especially at dawn. One large bird in a stream valley, not a stork or heron I think, maybe a crane. Swifts nesting in the eaves of Yağcılar teahouse.

Mammals – A fleeting fox. Boar tracks. Deer tracks (I think). A grey squirrel in Hasanlı.

Summary:  Beautiful landscapes and nature but tough… The route needs a lot of further development and there are alternative ways to approach this. More info soon.

Thanks to: My fellow hikers (four of us was an optional number I think). The muhtars and villagers who helped us. The Hoşgöru Yolu team. İzmit municipality’s recreation dept.

Nick Hobbs

Hiking Istanbul

14.6.21