Kaçkar Dağları

Kaçkar Mountains National Park was declared on 31 August 1994 and covers 52,970 hectares, mostly in the district of Çamlıhemşin, in Rize province, with a portion in Artvin province, in north-eastern Turkey.

It protects the highest sector of the Pontic Alps, the range that separates the Black Sea coast from the Anatolian interior and that culminates in Kaçkar, above 3,900 metres. It is the only area of Turkey with active glaciers outside the far east of the country, and the high-mountain landscape combines cirques, glacial lakes, moraines and ridges with an exceptional rainfall regime: the northern flank receives the highest precipitation in the country.

That moisture supports, below the high mountain, a temperate rainforest of oriental beech, fir and spruce with a rhododendron understorey, a Colchic-type formation that constitutes one of the richest forests in western Europe and Asia Minor. The Fırtına valley, to the west, and the Hemşin, to the east, are covered in that vegetation. The district also preserves the culture of the yayla, the summer grazing settlements of the Hemşin and Laz communities, with wood and stone architecture and a transhumance still active within the park.