Guide
The Dark Canyon lies in the Kemaliye district of Erzincan — Eğin, in the older name — where the Karasu, a branch of the Euphrates, has cut a gorge between sheer rock slopes. It was registered in 2020 as a natural site with protected-area status.
It runs about 25 kilometres. The depth passes 1,000 metres, the floor narrows to ten or fifteen metres in places, and the slopes reach gradients of ninety per cent, which is what puts it among the more unusual canyons in the country. Springs break out of the walls and fall into the Karasu in small cascades, and where the slopes ease, oak stands appear; both soften what is otherwise a severe landscape. The closed ecosystem shelters wild goat, otter and lynx.
For climbers the walls have opened up in recent years to rock climbing and canyoning. The most distinctive activity here is base jumping: a steel cable is strung between two points where the height above the water reaches 480 metres and the distance from one bank to the other reaches 500, and the jump ends on a small piece of land in the Euphrates.
The canyon also suits rafting, mountaineering, cycling, canoe and boat racing, microlight flying, paramotoring, paragliding, scout camps, cirit, off-road driving and safari, and it hosts the Kemaliye Culture and Nature Sports Festival each May. Boat trips are a quieter way to see it. Cut through the hard rock of the canyon is the Taş Yolu, the Stone Road — seven kilometres of it, an important part of how Kemaliye connects to the world and remarkable in its own right for what it does to the landscape.
