Trekking In Turkey: Long Distance Paths

selam,

We(4 people) have just finished walking part of the st paul trail from köprilü kanyon to adada and would like to comment on waymarking problems for future travellers.

the route till beydilli is in almost perfect condition.

The route from beydili to çukurca has been damaged from the new road construction to beydilli which ironically is being built for tourism for easy access to beydilli. However finding your way isnt that hard... The old wooden bridge on the köprüçay is a little damaged. It holds but it scared us. The new bridge should be finished next year, so they say

The rest needs, in my opinion, almost complete redoing. The waymarks between kesme and kasımlar were deliberately erased. Rocks have been moved to cover the marks. Some were scratched. We asked a local young shephard about this, he said the pigs are doing this.. Yeah right...The pigs sure have developed some skills...

The section between kasımlar and tota where you meet the road(the junction) is a disaster. Forget finding it without gps.

The section after tota where you get off the dirt road till yeniköy is not even marked in our opinion or totally erased in years.. Only with the gps coordinates downloaded from the official website could we reach yeniköy.

So be warned, do not attemtp the route in these sections without a gps unless you want to get really angry..

The owners of the pensions we have met, especially abdurrahman in kasımlar and ibrahim in eğirdir are well aware of these problems..and are eager to solve them.. We have heard, a new waymarking is due april..we also wish to participate.. Hopefully it will make things
easier.

and if i may dare say, some sections of the route where you have to walk on asphalt for almost 1.5 hours doesnt make sense.. saint paul trail? or st paul highway... i think, the idea of trail walking should not be sacrificed just to be able to see some historical ruins.... a trail should remain a trail without historical tourist amusements..At least alternative routes should be done..

still i had one of the best walking experiences in my life and would like to thank all who have contributed creating this route.. i hope i havent been too harsh in my comments

selamlar
ali

As you know it will all be sorted out in April. We have a new route to replace the road section nr Tota, but unfortunately when we went to mark it, it snowed... Kate