This nature park covers 422 hectares in the Ilgaz district of Çankırı and was declared on 5 September 2012. It is singled out for the richness of its fauna, and there is no village or plateau settlement within its bounds.
It lies within the Ilgaz Kadinçayiri-Yıldıztepe culture and tourism conservation and development region, close to the Yıldıztepe area being built up to its east, and about ten kilometres from the ski centre inside the Ilgaz Dağı national park. It has capacity for 330 visitors and 110 vehicles. It is reached from the south by way of Ilgaz on the Çankırı-Kastamonu state road; Ilgaz is 49.5 kilometres from Çankırı.
The interest of the place is ecological rather than scenic set pieces. The development plan describes mostly pure or mixed coniferous forest, with wet and dry meadows, a stream ecosystem, riverside heath and scrub, and in one small patch a marsh and peat ecosystem; where these run into one another deciduous shrubs and trees appear as well. The thin branches of running water in the damp, steep valleys inside the forest and in the open ground are what matter for the plants and animals adapted to them. The plan counts 211 plant taxa in the park and its immediate surroundings, of which 45 are endemic, and 5 amphibian, 12 reptile, 28 mammal and 42 bird species. It also says openly that no specific, comprehensive study of the park's own flora and vegetation exists: the list was assembled from short field observation, photographs and notes together with the published literature, and a study spread over all four seasons would be expected to show a richer flora.
There are facilities, even though the plan records no organised recreation of its own inside the boundary. An entrance control, a cafeteria and a zipline are run by a private operator; the park also has seven cottages, an administration and visitor centre, a country restaurant and two washing-up units. People from the district use the ground for day picnics, and the plan lists tent camping, photography, plant and animal observation, sport and picnicking among the uses its resources will carry, naming the broad meadows on both banks of the Gök Dere and at the Yarpınar locality as the ground best suited to them. Walking and mountain biking are possible.
The plan does not present the park as untouched, and a visitor may as well know that in advance. It states that the damage done by stream regulation works and by the picnic area where fires are lit has already raised concern for the future, and that the ground is being used as a picnic place by methods that are not sustainable and without regard to the balance between protection and use — while adding that, in spite of this, it keeps the capacity to renew itself. The park lies against the Ilgaz Dağları national park and the Ilgaz wildlife development area, whose ecosystem continues into it, so the plan expects buildings and heavier human use here to be felt there too.
- Designated
- 5.09.2012
Entry fee
- Black Sea group 1 · category 2 · Per person
- 50 ₺
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 08:00 - 20:00
When to go
- Climate
- Across Çankırı as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.4 °C in January to 23.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (57 mm) and lightest in August (18 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
