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Teofil Vlad embarked on a journey to Turkey to conquer the sacred mountain of Ararat, where legend has it that Noah's Ark came to rest. Ararat stands as Turkey's tallest peak and beckons all those who seek to reach the summit of a dormant volcano, testing their endurance prowess. Teofil Vlad shares his remarkable adventure on this iconic mountain.
At the beginning of September, I organized a short trip to Mt. Ararat in Eastern Turkey. While Ararat is surrounded by both legend and history, the climb is perfect for introducing people to what altitude means. The altitude of the summit is 5165 meters, and the approach is very easy by a four-wheel drive from the town of Dogubayazit until 2200m of altitude.
From here, you have to walk through arid alpine meadows until an altitude of 3200m, where the first camp is. After that, the volcanic scree starts almost to the top where you encounter frozen snow.
For me, it was an easy option when packing in a hurry – I wanted something good for the travel in both plane and car – very easy to put on and take off, good for walking in town and it seems they were good to hike in till 4200m of altitude. When dust and pebbles were sneaking inside (they were entering every kind of low-cut shoe I saw on the mountain, and in that temperature, I simply didn’t want anything else except a low cut – my option), I just take them off and remove very easily everything, and they were just good to go.
From 4200 m on, I used on the summit day my Stellar GTX Nubuck from Kayland, which were comfortable enough to walk on rocks, warm enough to keep my feet dry to 5000m plus meters in a cold windy day and they work with a semi-automatic crampon – in the last part of the ascent, it is wise to use crampons, even if just very light ones.
From my past experiences with Stellar Ad and the use of Stellar GTX Nubuck in snowy routes in the Alps, like the normal route of Jungfrau, I knew what to expect at, but the question was how the boots will stand the temperatures, which on top of Ararat might feel quite low. They did great, so I would say that Stellar GTX Nubuck fits very well that kind of 5000m volcanic summit.