Difficult new multi-pitch alpine sport route in Aladağlar, Turkey

British climbers Seb Bush, Simon Smith and Mike "Twid" Turner have recently established a new hard multi-pitch sport climb in the Aladağlar National Park in southern Turkey. The 300m route tackles a completely independent line on the Northwest Face of Kizilin Basì and was established ground-up over a period of 9 days. A combination of free climbing and aid climbing was used to reach the top before fixed ropes were implemented to clean and add additional bolts. All the pitches were climbed free with difficulties up to 8a max, unfortunately though time ran out for a single push ascent.

Writing to planetmountain, Smith explained "It’s a great route with sustained climbing and some lovely rock in a beautiful setting. It was the first time Seb or myself had ever equipped anything on this scale, so going away with Twid and the wealth of experience he brings was fantastic. An undertaking like this is logistically challenging with some hard graft and we worked well together as a team. It was great to swap sore jugging arms and dust filled eyes for a short window in which to free climb the individual pitches. A spell of bad weather and some car crash trials and tribulations meant we basically had to flash every pitch first go to get the route climbed against the clock!"

As to the name of the route, Smith stated "The eponymous kitties belong to Recep and Zaynep Ince at Aladaglar camping bungalow. We’re very grateful to these guys for helping us out with rope and kit when one of our party had to bail at the last minute, they were really generous and supportive and their bungalows are great. The Aladağlar mountain range is stunning and these guys have developed some excellent single pitch sport climbing to supplement the extensive alpine adventure to be had in this national park. The conglomerate and limestone sport here should make it onto the hit list of any sun hungry bolt clipper looking to beat the crowds of better known areas like Geyikbayiri. Recep’s guidebook should get you salivating!"