Photos - Flowers

These are just a small selection of the wonderful flowers I encountered during March and April. At other times of year it might look very different, but each season has its charms.

 

 

Lessons from the Trail

My campsites

Keep your distance... down

While walking at one's own pace is obviously critical, a separate question is “How far per day should I plan for?”. In this terrain and with the rough uneven track surface 15km per day is a very comfortable distance. At this average the trail length (let’s call it 435km) makes this 29 days. In fact I did it in 27. My two pairs of rest days (at Kaş and Çirali) broke it comfortably into three slightly unequal sections.

The trick is to avoid being overly ambitious at the start and work up to a sustainable pace. There was only one long flat day (after Finike) which many people skip. However it was strangely restful to be on a flat smooth surface for  a few hours, though I was glad to get back onto more interesting terrain afterwards.

Tarptent Contrail

Do you have Perfect Pitch?
Once again I used my Tarptent Contrail (about 800g including 8 pegs). It is not a freestanding tent, and uses one trekking pole. It requires a minimum of four good pegs securely in the ground. As it happened I had no difficulty finding good camping spots. And there’s certainly no shortage of rocks for hammers.

From long experience I already knew to put up my tent properly every time, which includes all the 5-6 extra guys and pegs. And generally I do do this. However one particular night (just past Demre) This lesson was really hammered home.

I pitched the tent on a lovely flat dry area, shielded from the wind, under seemingly clear skies. Just after I’d finished the rain started and did not let up for 9 hours. Not only was I dry and comfortable within, but able to fill up my water supply from the runoff.

Each tent will have its pitching quirks, but the key thing is to know what these are and practice pitching it consistently well. 

There was one beach where I decided that I couldn’t camp simply because it was too sandy (and I wasn’t carrying my wide stakes). So I relocated higher up on firmer ground.

Time for Tea

I find it good to avoid too strict an adherence to a plan or schedule. Especially when it comes to food. Basically I took every opportunity that came my way to have meals or tea breaks whenever they presented themselves. 

Sometimes I was invited to share a picnic with a family or drink tea with a group of men by the roadside. Sometimes small markets appeared where I could get a drink of Ayran (a delicious non-sweet yogurt drink - a salt lassi in effect) and maybe top up something I needed. 

And while it was good to be well prepared with information (locations for water, camping spots and shops) it was really only necessary to think about where to stop for the night in the early afternoon and based on that to pick where to get water for the night. 

This way unexpected and delightful encounters have the space to happen. And with a people as welcoming and generous as the Turks it’s good to be open to that.

Walk the dog 
This was a new and entirely unexpected aspect of this walk. Ten days is a good length of time to get to know a dog and see how they operate and interact with yourself, other people and other dogs. It was fascinating. And while I don’t own a dog myself, I do now really understand why people hike with them. It felt quite a privilege to be brought under the protection of such a loyal and fierce guardian.

One tip
You can’t force dogs to drink when they don’t want to. And you can’t successfully tell them “Hey, there’s no water for the next four hours”. However with just a spare plastic bag and a few small rocks I could fashion a dog bowl. But it means on a hot day you need to carry a half litre water bottle extra for them.

Echo... echo... echo
If you are lucky you may be in just the right place to hear the Muezzin's Adhan (Call to Prayer) passing from one mosque to another in the hills. And what was so magic were the carefully timed pauses to allow for the echo off the cliffs. Haunting and beautiful.

My Top Tips

#1 Timing - Pick your season with care. I strongly recommend mid March to mid April. Your weather may vary of course. Mine was almost perfect for the entire trail. And there was the added benefit that mostly there were very few people around. 

#2 Footwear - Boots were a very good choice for this trail. Despite it being generally warm (and entirely snow free) my misgivings over swapping out my regular hiking shoes (Salomon X-Ultra 2 non-Goretex) in favour of my new boots were very quickly overcome. And the longer the trail went on the more I appreciated my footwear combination. 

I used Scarpa R-Evolution Pro GTX boots* with two pairs of wool socks and my normal footbed combination of Superfeet Green (with several thousands of km of use) above a thin Noene shock absorbing layer. 

The slight dampness by the end of the day was more than offset but the comfort, control, support, grip and protection.  It’s an uneven, rocky, sharp and often loose trail surface. For camp and on the beach a light pair of flip flops were a nice change. I carried five pairs of wool socks.

*Update on the boots
Only a couple of months later in the Caucasus mountains in Georgia, one of the Scarpa boots failed completely. The sole split clean across the widest part of the foot, rendering them almost useless. They had done barely 750km and were less than six months old. Very disappointing. 

So I am having them replaced. Due to the range available locally to me and the excellent fit, I am going for a different model of Scarpa that uses a different sole. The Marmolada Pro OD. We will see how these fare. It's Scarpa's last chance as far as I'm concerned, but they do feel very comfortable and secure and the reviews (based in Scotland) were excellent.

#3 Water - One of the key steps in the chain of events that lead to you having enough water in your body is Accessibility. There are times you will need a light cord of about 5-6m and (of course) a wide mouth Nalgene bottle. Other bottles may do fine for providing capacity to carry water but for rapid filling the good old Nalgene cannot be beaten. Additionally it works well as a hot water bottle where no others will. Flat plastic pouches are worthless in  both these applications. I strongly recommend clipping the free end onto something robust so it doesn’t accidentally fall down the cistern. By the same token remove hats and sunglasses before peering down into the depths.

#4 Direction - Section hikers can more or less do any part equally well in either direction though I’d argue that Demre to Finike is much better than the reverse (and probably some parts of the last six days too). However through hikers (which is the intended audience here) would be well advised to go West to East, as a quick look at the trail profile will make plain. However it’s worth mentioning that the first 5 days from Fethiye are actually more difficult from a trail surface point of view than the last five days from Cirali. It’s just that the scales of the ups and down are so much greater in the East than the West. Plus it’s nicer to walk away from a hot afternoon sun than towards it (in general). However if you are already trail hardened and wish to encounter more people (albeit en passant) then West to East is certainly doable.

#5 Food - It’s Turkey so the food is wonderful and where your budget permits it’s very enjoyable to pick up what meals and refreshments present themselves along the way. However early in the season some places will be closed up (Kabak being one such example). I was glad I had been cautious and planned for five days food at the start. I certainly needed it. Until the last stage of six days that was the longest stretch with little en route additions. There are plenty of small markets in some areas and not so much in others. I suppose that on average I had three days food with me, though I tended to go light on lunch or skip it altogether if it was warm. I also tended where practical to camp some distance before the next village so that I could enjoy something around mid morning as I passed through. Kekova provided a particularly memorable “second breakfast” in this way.

#6 Fuel - It would certainly be possible to use firewood for much of the trail if conditions permit. At times they seemed to me to be too dry and too windy for this to be responsible. You do see stone fireplaces at most camping spots. In summer it would be dangerous, but then you’d already be mad to hike this in summer in the first place. But for sheer convenience you can’t beat gas. And while it’s certainly not available in every village it can be found in sufficient places even for a profligate user. I picked up gas in Antalya (before the start), Kas and Cirali. I suspect it would be available in Demre and Finike but can not confirm this. I did see bottles of what looked like meths but didn’t bother to confirm this. It’s a much less satisfactory and controllable fuel than gas. For what it’s worth I’ll repeat my advice to use an MSR Superfly stove. It does away with the question of which canister type is available (answer: mostly screw type) though I did see some of the loathsome puncture type cans. The sooner those are banned the better. 

Tools

I will mention here a few key tools in preparing the digital packing:

• GraphHopper - This is a very useful routing website. Really well done. The only two “problems” are: It only saves data to GPX files so these require a conversion step to use as KML. Also from time to time it reveals data errors in the underlying maps (which is not its fault of course). As an example a track might not meet a junction leaving a gap so it routes around half the world instead of doing what looks completely obvious. When creating the LW track I used the Hiking form of transport and the TF Outdoors map layer which includes contours and looks very good. I have used this extensively for long distance cycling routes and been highly impressed with the results.
• GPSVisualizer - This is an excellent (indeed comprehensive and clever) companion tool like a sort of Swiss Army knife for mapping data. My primary uses for it are: Converting GPX to KML. Adding 5km waypoints. Building a profile of a track.
• GPS Prune - this is quite a neat little package that runs locally on Mac and Windows. Can be used for conversions, simplifying data and looking at the results. On Mac it runs as a Java app.
• Basecamp. I really do not like Garmin’s bloated and clunky tool. Even on the Mac the interface is as ugly as sin. However to be marginally fair it does do a couple of useful things. One of which is that you can choose the Icon for Waypoints which then appears in the GPS. At least it does IF you happen to choose one that is available in your particular model (otherwise they default to Blue Flags). Many people quite like this tool as it does lots of stuff (most of which you can do yourself with less fuss using other methods). But if you want to minimise the amount you need to learn then this is your one stop shop for all things Garmin GPS. The KML files it produces are not especially elegant.
• calibre seems to be the ebook/Kindle library management tool of choice. Again the interface leaves a lot to be desired but it does the job. The primary job being to store all ebooks/documents and pump them out to a Kindle.
• Maps.Me is less of a tool to create data and more a tool to use it on iPhone (and Android). With two notable exceptions.Firstly if you import a KML file to MM then edit it slightly (eg a small name change), then export it out again it will then be in the proper MM format. This means that externally made edits (ie changing the colour of certain pins en masse) will “stick” when the file is reimported. So it forms a very handy step on the way to a fully functional KML file.
  
  Secondly it allows you to record places in situ and then save/share the results for use elsewhere.
• Lastly you need a decent editor. And on the Mac my editor of choice is TextWrangler. This is much more powerful than I really know what to do with. Still with XML documents (GPX and KML being examples) it colours the text to make sense of the syntax and allows expanding and collapsing of various levels. Importantly it also has very (as in VERY) powerful search and replace functions using grep-style regular expressions. I wouldn’t be without it*.
• All of this stuff ends up on Dropbox which is well integrated into MacOS and iOS and comes with it’s own tools and tricks. Amongst these are the inbuilt text editor (Hint: to edit a KML file on the fly you need to rename Track.kml to Track.txt, edit it then rename it back again).

* This ends with macOS 10.13.4 at which point one must move to BBEdit from the same team.

Navigation

Waymarking is in Red and White

Different scales require different strategies

• A trip overview (500km) might be done on paper
• The next few days worth (50km) could be comfortably viewed on a tablet
• The next hour (from 5km down to 500m) can be done easily on a phone
• The next few steps (between 50m and 5m) requires looking at the terrain, waymarks and the path itself

These are the strategies I will adopt on this trail:

Plan A: Waymarking. For the most part I expect it will be quite an easy trail to follow and adequately signposted. But it appears that there are areas of low (and scratchy) scrub where finding the path is both more difficult and more important. Update: It was pretty easy for 98% of the time.

Plan B: iPhone with the Maps.Me app loaded with all the Tracks and Waypoints I have prepared. This is especially useful for looking up things that are ahead on the trail or calculating a quick distance-till-lunch/camp. Update: The track I had loaded was about 95% in agreement with the facts in the ground. Where these differed I went with the marked trail. 

Plan C: Garmin GPS turning it on/off whenever I need it. Used that way (30x2mins per day) I can get over three weeks use out of one set of AA batteries. I will carry a spare set. It is one of the two main reasons I still have this device which I otherwise find limited and whose software is irritatingly badly designed. That said it is robust and waterproof enough to use it where I’d rather not use the phone. And for the little I demand of it it works well enough. As as it is now 6 years old it is starting to owe me rather less. I load OSM maps to it directly. And carry a spare microUSB card with a backup copy of the files/maps. Update: I only turned on the GPS twice just to confirm it was all working. If it had rained more I might have used it more often. 

Plan D: I have a compass in my Suunto watch and there is the sun and most likely there is a great big sea on one side. This would be adequate to get back to a place to regroup.

Plan E: Sometimes you just need to ask! Especially if local weather conditions are difficult or dangerous.

Update: I did encounter one young guy walking the trail armed only with a compact German description. This is of very limited value and gives no mental overview of where the route goes. Crucially it was inadequate for both planning water and resupply. Of course it was completely useless once one was already off the described route. Foolish and potentially dangerous. I hope he managed somehow, but he was certainly making life difficult for no good reason. 

Trail Signage

Water

Water availability (or the lack thereof - see Hazards) is one thing, but water quality is also important. Where necessary I will use the following purification methods:

• Drink tea - Or in other words boil the water. This also has intrinsic benefits, amongst which slowing you down is high on the list.
• Tablets - I have some dubiously aged Micropur tablets and some dubiously tasting regular Puritabs. The advantage of these being that there is negligible weight involved. The former are certainly past the “best before” date and the latter taste like a used public swimming pool. Still both may be better than nothing in a pinch
• Sawyer filter - this is a new addition. It is very light and I am unlikely to get through the 400,000 litres that it can apparently process. In other words its lifetime is certainly longer than mine (especially if it doesn’t work as advertised!)

Aside from the large number (124 or so) of points I have already marked as water sources, there are also Mosques, which always have water. Failing that ask at a house.

Shepherds may also know of water sources if you find yourself far from habitation and running low. Running low is definitely a situation to avoid at all costs. At the end of the hike I will update all this and in particular detail any significant gaps between water points.

Digital Packing

I will put a bunch of files in the Downloads section.

These have taken a while to put together, but I am getting quicker with practice and experience. All of the Documents are loaded to Dropbox in a logical structure, and backed up. 

Finally they loaded to their respective devices:

• Kindle Paperwhite - PDF documents and books to read
• Garmin eTrex 20 GPS - Maps for all the countries on this journey. GPX files for Tracks and Waypoints
• iPhone 5s - KML files for Tracks and Waypoints, PDFs for reference and reading (including a Profile of the trail)
• iPad Mini 2 - Same as the iPhone. Used for overview and planning but not taken on the trail

Tracks

The tracks are taken from the Lycian Way path as marked on Open Street Maps (OSM). Wherever it is not 100% accurate I will go with whatever is marked on the ground and attempt to record the differences where these are material.

Waypoints

The waypoints are a considerable mixture. Some are recorded by friends who have done it already and recorded where they camped. Others are from websites, and others I created from OSM. A notable example of the latter is one file with every water source that I could find, so that I have an explicit “pin” for each point. As I progress along the trail I intend to record camping places and any significant water sources that are not already marked.

Apps

I have installed the TrailSmart App and set it to the Lycian Way. It appears to contain a wealth of information and will be a useful supplement to my regular mapping app.

My normals apps (iOS) include: Maps.Me, Kindle, Acrobat Reader and Dropbox. 

SIM

I intend to get a TurkCell Sim card with a data package to be able to stay in touch with a few friends. I’ll put my regular SIM into a spare little plastic Nokia 108, just as a backup and for any occasions when I need to receive an SMS on that specific phone. Assuming it does roam there. TurkCell seem to be the best deal as far as I can tell at this stage. I will get it once I arrive in Antalya.