Reaching these lakes takes a day's planning: after the Mor Yayla turning on the İkizdere-Ovit-İspir road, it is 21 kilometres of gravel road from Çayirözü village and then a walk of one to two hours.
The seven crater lakes lie close to one another at 3,048 metres, on the summits in the Verçenik mountain area on the south-west side of the Kaçkar range, at Çayirözü on the Rize-Erzurum boundary, 125 kilometres from the centre of Rize.
Getting there
- Access
- From the Mor Yayla junction on the İkizdere–Ovit–İspir road, go on past Çayırözü village along twenty-one kilometres of stabilised track, then walk for one or two hours.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Rize as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in February to 23.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in October (294 mm) and lightest in May (97 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
