Guide
Karabük's Yenice Forest is old-growth woodland of monumental trees, some with trunks of a girth and height found in few places on earth, growing among green valleys and steep peaks kept moist by plentiful water. In 1999 WWF named a hundred forest 'hot spots' across Europe — areas of exceptional biodiversity in need of urgent protection — and Yenice is one of the nine in Türkiye. Its nature protection zones, which hold the monumental trees, and its arboretum are the most valuable parts of the forest.
The walking network was set up from October 2009 in a project led by the Governorship of Karabük and the district administration of Yenice. It has 21 marked trails over 210 km, or 396 km with the alternative routes, graded as day walks, short trips and long trips on forest roads and footpaths, plus 292 km of mountain bike routes. The trails are marked to the international Grande Randonnée standard: red and white paint flashes along the way, and signposts where each route begins, ends or meets another. Eight more paths later carried the network on to Eskipazar and the ruins of Hadrianoupolis. April to November is the season for walking here.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Karabük as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 3.3 °C in January to 24.4 °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 (26 mm). Long-term means for 1965-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
