Follies in the Snowfields of Turkey's Mount Nemrut (Nemrud)

Going up the east trail to see the colossal heads of the gods (including, prominently, himself) commissioned by the Selucid King Antiochus I (62-38 BCE), we were hailed on for a surprisingly long time. With both a cap and a hood, I thought hail was better than rain, despite the noise of impacts, because I got less wet. The ill-conceived ascent included both snow and rain, so I can compare!

We hit a sign instructing us not to climb on the rocks, but no indication of which was official trail, which was not. Higher up, I should have turned back the first time I was knee-deep in snow. I was determined to see the colossal heads and kept going. I reached a hut that was closed and seemed to afford no protection from the wind on any side. Can the wind be blowing from every direction simultaneously? It seemed so to me.

Rather than confusing signage, there was none at all (perhaps buried in the snow but probably not) at this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After a few yards through deep snow trying to reach the eastern platform, I remembered that our very veteran tour leader (who stayed down) said the west platform was more spectacular than the east, and that the west trail was shorter than the east, the ascent of which had been miserable. So, concluding that going to both was out of the question, I went away from the east. I came to nothing except a bad fall (a double one, a very awkward somersault that left me cut and bruised on my right buttocks and lower back, with cuts on my right leg and left wrist, while my right glove was ripped rather than skin). I did not seriously consider going back up to follow the footprints back to the east trail. I decided to descend hoping to hit the west trail somewhere below the snow.

I'm not sure whether I crossed the west trail. I must have crossed the east one, though I saw no tracks (indeed, I saw none on my whole descent, nor any sign of human habitation, and there was nothing for goats or sheep to eat).

I felt that my alternative was to sit down and die of exposure or to descend. When I was finally out of the snow, I knew that I had missed the trail back to the parking lot, but again was not about to go up to try to find it. I went down a dry ravine, knowing that I might come to a cataract. I went around several ten foot drops then came to one of about fifty feet.

Yet again, I saw no point in trying to go back up, and worked my way around. I guess that I had been lost for about three hours. My Arizona mountain experience (or reptile brain?) pushed me to keep going down down, always downward. There was very little brush and it was quite wet, and I didn't have matches or a knife, as I would in Arizona mountain hiking, alas. So I did not consider stopping in a cave, especially with several more hours of daylight (through drizzle(,

After a few hours entirely alone, I heard shouts behind me, shouted back, and eventually heard "Steve" from Fybsi, our driver. He and a local named Girni overtook me and we continued the way I was going. I'm not convinced that I was "rescued," but I was reassured that keeping going would eventually reach the road and glad to have company.

Though both the Turks were wearing flat-bottom shoes, there was so much mud stuck to my boots, that I'm not sure I had any more traction than they did, only more weight to lift with each step. I was also carrying a lot of mud on my jeans, and every step with my right leg was painful to me

Throw in the altitude (7001' at the summit) and the need to step carefully so as not to fall again (mostly in mud by the point I was no longer alone), and I could not keep up. Arm in arm I had to keep moving my legs at a rate that I found painful.

I knew that everyone else had been waiting a long time for me, though there was nowhere I'd rather have been than with the group in the bus driving down the ugly mountains (Nemrut is the archetype of "ugly" for the Turks and there are two high mountains with that name). As long as I didn't fall, I was confident that I was not going to die, though I might be even more uncomfortable than I already was, particularly after dark fell.

My conjecture/hope that eventually I would reach a road was correct. I anticipated that I would take it down and eventually reach the village we drove through on the way up. I was fatigued and delighted that there was a car waiting where we reached the road. The a ten-minute drive back to the parking lot reminded me how far I had gone (8 km in Girni's estimate). I had newspapers to sit on in the car (and later the bus). Climbing a few steps to the "chalet" was tough, recalling how difficult even a few steps were the day after hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona (there, climbing back up seemed easier...)

Perhaps from the amount of adrenaline I'd been pumping, as well as my lined, waterproof coat, I had not felt cold. On the snow, I was mindful of the possibility of frostbite, but wiggling my toes reassured me on that score. Resting briefly on a rock out of the wind in the canyon, I wrang out my socks. My gloves were soaked, but, oddly, my fingers were not cold either. Especially below the knee, I was wet. Not stopping, I did not much feel them. I was focused on my footing rather than on my discomforts.

Apparently, I'd been tracked from the summit. The track was lost for a while on rock, but recovered in another snow field.Incidentally, the west platform is snowed completely under. Had I been able to see it, the frustration of several bad falls and being wet and muddy would have had some meaning. As it was, I had put myself in lethal danger for nothing.

As it turned down, sitting down in the snow would have been a better choice, but I felt at least a bit of pride in my ability to climb down through major obstacles without further hurting myself. But I was very miffed with myself for getting into such a desperate situation. As I said, I should have given up the first time I sank up to my knee in show. On the other hand, I don't think we should have been sent off without a local guide familiar with the terrain, all the more so after learning that I could not have made it to the west platform even had I gone toward it.

I was very impressed at the cellphone coverage within a ravine with not a single hut.

Girni, the local (who leads mules carrying visitors in better weather) asked me to buy him some shoes to replace those wrecked in going after me, which I, of course, promised to do after we return to the US. Keelung and I each gave Fybsi plenty of money to replace his shoes, though money or material goods (shoes) cannot pay for the gratitude I feel to Fybsi and Girni for crossing the same hazardous terrain.

BTW, Fybsi and Girni took a break while waiting for me to catch up with them to smoke. That I couldn't keep up with smokers was disconcerting, but not a major concern in comparison to the acutely inadequate signage at a world historical site or some bad decisions, most but not all of them mine.

In addition to preferring hail to rain or wet snow, I decided that I preferred slip-sliding on snow more than picking my way across loose rocks. The mud was less dangerous, but more disheartening. Though I was not near panicking (as I was when lost in Lava Tubes National Monument underground), I was plenty annoyed at myself, and completely unwilling to listen to criticism from anyone else when finally reunited '" however wet and miserable '" with the group. (I wrote this primarily to answer my partner's question "Why didn't you backtrack from the hut at the summit?")