Küre Mountains National Park

Overview

Guide

Küre Dağları National Park protects 37,753 hectares of the Western Black Sea mountains, spread across the Kastamonu and Bartın provinces, and it was declared on 7 July 2000. The Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks runs it from an office in central Bartın, and the gates are open from 08:00 to 18:00.

The park is built around canyons and the high meadows above them. The directorate points visitors to four viewing terraces cut into the canyon rims — the Muratbaşı Burgu Terrace over the Valla Canyon, the glass terrace over the Çatak Canyon, and the terraces over the Loç Valley and the Aydos Canyon — alongside day-use areas, marked walking paths and visitor information centres.

Higher up, the Sorkun and Zoni plateaus, the Karapınar and Armutlu meadows, the Ilıca Waterfall and the Kızılcasu camping ground are the places set aside for resting and for pitching a tent. The park is sized for a good deal of traffic: it states a capacity of 150,000 visitors, 1,500 vehicles and 500 tents.

One caution comes from the directorate itself rather than from a guidebook: parts of the park are hard terrain with wildlife in it, and the directorate states plainly that it accepts no responsibility for what happens to visitors on the way to those points or after they arrive. Plan the harder canyon approaches accordingly, and ask at the park directorate before setting out.