Türkiye's highest ground lies at its eastern edge, where Ararat stands out above the plains, but the mountains reach much further than that: volcanoes on the Anatolian plateau, the climbing walls of the Taurus, a range rising almost straight out of the Black Sea, and peaks above the Mediterranean coast that you can ride up by cable car. This post goes through the mountains that have guides on this site, with heights only where those guides give them. Skiing has its own post; this one is about the mountains themselves.
The three highest: Ararat, Uludoruk and Süphan
At 5,137 metres, Ağrı Dağı — Mount Ararat — is the highest mountain in Türkiye. It stands at the country's eastern edge, sixteen kilometres west of Iran and thirty-two south of Armenia, a volcano with two summits, Büyük Ağrı and Küçük Ağrı. It is also the only mountain in the country with a present-day ice cap, ten square kilometres of it, the largest glacier in Türkiye, with eleven glacier tongues hanging from the summit. The mountain has been a national park since 2004, and the walking and climbing routes cover Greater and Lesser Ararat, Süphan and Köse, along with the high lakes of Balık and Küp; GPS data and a guidebook for them have been published. İshak Paşa Palace is in the same province.
The second-highest summit is in Hakkâri: Uludoruk, also called Reşko, at 4,135 metres, in the Cilo and Sat Mountains National Park. The Cilo glaciers there are given as 25,000 years old, and Cilo and Sirebi are among several peaks suited to technical climbing. The third is Süphan Dağı, 4,058 metres, north of Lake Van, an extinct volcano with a lava dome and glacial lakes on its summit and an ice cap over the top. Most ascents are from the east: climbers start at Aydınlar village, camp on the high pastures of Şekerpınarı or Süphan Yaylası at about 2,500 metres, and need 8–10 hours, sometimes 12, for the summit and back. The summer season runs from late June to the middle of September, and Lake Van spreads out below the top.
Volcanoes of central Anatolia
Mount Erciyes, 3,917 metres, rises south of Kayseri: the highest mountain in central Anatolia and the fifth highest in Türkiye. Its eruptions laid down the material from which the landscape of Cappadocia was later carved, and its Hittite name meant White Mountain. It is a year-round mountain — climbers come for mountaineering and ice climbing, trekking tours run in summer, and the walk from the lake district between Kayseri and Niğde to the Kapuzbaşı waterfalls is one of the better long walks in the region. Minibuses towards Develi from central Kayseri serve the ski centre at Hisarcik.
Hasan Dağı, on the boundary of Aksaray and Niğde, is a twin volcano: Büyük Hasan at 3,268 metres, with a crater lake in its summit crater, and Küçük Hasan at 2,844. It is among the youngest volcanic mountains in Türkiye, and after an earthquake in 2020 fumaroles appeared on it. The people of Çatalhöyük gathered obsidian around its slopes, and a wall painting from that settlement is taken by some to show the mountain. Two mountains in the south-east share the name Nemrut: Nemrut Dağı in Adıyaman, where the tumulus of Antiochos I of Commagene stands at 2,150 metres, and the volcano near Tatvan in Bitlis, whose caldera holds five lakes at 2,247 metres.
The Taurus: Aladağlar, Davraz and the coast
The Aladağlar, between Niğde, Kayseri and Adana, hold the highest summits of the Taurus. Kızılkaya reaches 3,771 metres, four peaks rise above 3,700 and more than fifty above 3,500, and with high rock walls, deep valleys and glacial lakes the range is one of the most sought-after climbing grounds in Türkiye. Climbing here has a long history: the geologist Franz Schaffer climbed Alacabaşı in 1901, and in 1927 an expedition made the first ascents of Demirkazık, Kızılkaya and three other summits. Guides, guesthouses and bungalows are found just outside the national park at Çukurbağ and Demirkazık on the north side and at Ulupınar and Kapuzbaşı on the south.
Davraz Dağı, 2,635 metres, rises between Lake Eğirdir and Lake Kovada above Isparta. Three routes lead to its summit; the western one, from above the town of Sav, can be done in a day in summer without technical gear. On the coast, Tahtalı Dağı rises to 2,365 metres above Kemer inside the Beydağları national park, and the Olimpos Teleferik cable car runs from the shore to the summit; paths lead down to Beycik village, about four hours on foot, and to Çukuryayla, about six. Above Ölüdeniz, a cable car climbs Babadağ from 226 metres to a summit station at 1,900, and paragliders launch from its upper stations above the lagoon.
The Kaçkar and the Black Sea mountains
What sets the Kaçkar apart is how quickly the land rises. Summits approaching 4,000 metres stand barely thirty kilometres in from the sea, with glacial lakes and alpine meadows between them, inside a national park of 52,967 hectares across Rize, Artvin and Erzurum. The usual bases are Ayder on the Rize side and Olgunlar village, 56 kilometres from Yusufeli, on the Artvin side. Trekking and mountaineering are the main activities, and heli-skiing is on the directorate's list too.
Further west in Rize, the Ovit high pasture lies at 2,640 metres in İkizdere district and is used in summer for trekking and mountaineering. In Gümüşhane, Çakırgöl is a glacial lake at 2,500 metres among high pastures, close to the Deve Boynu summit that mountaineers climb. The Küre Mountains, between Kastamonu and Bartın, are wooded and cut by canyons; their name comes from küre, the old word for the furnaces in which copper ore was melted.
Mountains above cities and the Aegean
Uludağ rises south of Bursa to 2,543 metres and has been a national park since 1961; the cable car and the road both go up, and paths on the northern and southern slopes link the valleys and hills. Palandöken's slopes begin only ten minutes from central Erzurum. Above the Munzur valley between Tunceli and Ovacık, the Munzur mountains rise to 3,300 metres, cut through by the valleys of the Mercan and the Munzur.
Kaz Dağı, Mount Ida, is the sacred mountain of the legends, ringed by ancient settlements with Troy first among them; Turkmen villagers hold the Sarıkız festival on Sarıkız Tepesi in the last fifteen days of August each year. The Latmos range, today's Beşparmak, rises from the shores of Lake Bafa, and old paths that once led to Byzantine monasteries now carry part of the Carian Trail past the ruins of Herakleia and rock paintings dated to eight thousand years ago. Honaz Dağı above Denizli climbs to 2,500 metres over a short distance from the plain, which makes it a paragliding ground.
Long trails through the mountains
Several waymarked routes make the mountains walkable over days or weeks. The Lycian Way runs 760 kilometres from Fethiye to Antalya where mountains climb sharply from a rocky shore, mostly on Roman roads, old footpaths and mule tracks. The St Paul Trail is the wilder of the two long paths: it climbs from sea level to 2,200 metres, with two optional summits of about 2,800. The Efeler Yolu crosses the Nif Dağı and Bozdağ ranges and the Aydın mountains over 500 kilometres, in stages that end in villages where walkers can stay.
When to go and how to stay safe
On the Aladağlar, the climbing year runs like this. Winter brings heavy snow, blizzards and long spells below freezing. Spring, as it warms, is when avalanches are most frequent, and anyone climbing between February and May should watch avalanche conditions closely. June and July bring more activity, longer days and plenty of water; August and September have the most stable weather, but springs dry up towards the end of summer and climbers must carry their own water. On the coastal routes the calendar is reversed: the Lycian Way is for spring and autumn, when summer is too hot for long days.
The Aladağlar are also where Türkiye records the most mountaineering accidents, and climbers there are asked to tell the gendarmerie about their climb so that contact can be made in an emergency. Anyone without experience should climb only with a guide. Each mountain's own page on this site has the practical details.
