Karpuscay Kapiz
Or
The First Descent Of The Melon River Gorge
by J. R. Middleton
Ever since I was old enough to go to cowboy films I have always been sceptical about the reality of those narrow but very deep gorges that the cowboy’s horse could just manage to jump but that the Indians could not. However, after our experience in the Melon River Gorge I am a firm believer in such marvels of Nature.
The Turks have two names for ‘gorge’; one is “Bogaz” and means the usual type of gorge, much wider at the top than at the bottom; the other is ‘Kapiz” meaning one that is almost the same width at the top as at the bottom. The Karpuscay Kapiz is most decidedly of the latter kind and is one of the longest and deepest in Turkey. According to the 1:25,000 map of the area the deepest point is 825 feet and the average depth throughout its four mile length 680 feet, but on sight it seems much deeper. The width at the bottom varies between 15 feet and 18 inches, except where joined by a smaller gorge; at the top it varies between 30 and 100 feet. There is a vertical drop throughout its length of just over 300 feet.
The top end of the gorge is not far from the village of Fersinkoy, about three miles from the main Manavgat/Akseki road. It can be seen from about 20 miles away as a great gash slicing the mountains in two, it is indeed an impressive sight even at this distance. We had noticed it from afar many times so when our cave searching activities took us into the region we welcomed the opportunity of visiting it. We mentioned our interest to the local villagers, who said immediately that a descent was impossible and had never been done because of waterfalls and vertical drops. This, of course, had the opposite effect on us that the villagers expected and we arranged a “gorging” expedition for the following morning.
At 10 a.m. Tony and I, accompanied by a tough Turk called Cevat, duly said ‘Goodbye, see you in a couple of hours’ to Dr Aygen and headed down through the pine forest to the Melon River and into the gorge. The size of the river at that time of year (August) was perhaps equivalent to the volume of water emerging from Clapham Cave under average conditions, though judging from the high-water marks it was obviously quite a different river from late winter until early summer.
The first obstacle, practically at the start, was what presumably had stopped previous would-be explorers—a 20 foot drop over a couple of house-size boulders. This was fairly easily overcome by chimneying down one corner, unfortunately under the fall of water but wonderfully refreshing in Turkey’s almost unbearable heat. Alternate paddling and boulder scrambling led to a second obstacle at the narrowing down of the gorge to about 6 feet, a deep emerald green lake vanishing round a distant corner. So blowing up our Lilo and loading it with ladder, rope, camera and the rest of the tackle we set off on our first swim, the first in fact of a total of nearly two miles that we did eventually have to swim. From there until we came to the first pitch was a series of strenuous boulder scrambles, swims and climbs. The pitch was short, only 18 ft., but overhanging and definitely unclimbable. At the bottom we shook the ladder so that the belay came off, rolled it up and crossed our fingers that there would be no pitches of over 35 ft., that was all the ladder we had.
By 2.30 p.m. we had reached the half way point at the junction of the main gorge and a smaller one. Here we ate our lunch of squashed fruit, soaked bread and gritty cheese and we marvelled at the profusion and size of the trout in the pools between each boulder dam; many must have been almost 2 lbs. We now had a breathing space to investigate the largest fresh water crabs that we had seen, with shells a good 6 inches across, presumably they reached this size because of the abundance of food. I could not help wondering next time I swam across a bottomless lake, just how big were the crabs in the misty recesses: were they watching me hoping that a succulent toe would come their way?
We had to be quick over lunch as we were behind schedule and it was essential that we were out before dark; progress would have been impossible at night. So moving into top gear we sped off down an easy half mile of gorge until it again became narrow and consequently awkward, with swimming to jammed boulders and tree trunks, hauling ourselves up over the obstacles and dropping down again into the water which seemed to get progressively colder as we got more and more tired. The sides began to close in and the walls and ledges became fantastically eroded with rock pinnacles sticking up for no reason at all and potholes 4 or 5 feet across up to 8 feet deep. Eventually we came to another pitch, much more awkward than the first in that it dropped 25 feet directly into the water, thus making it exceedingly difficult to load the lilo. The walls continued to close in and soon we were squeezing through sections only 18 inches wide and thinking that 5 ft. was like the open sea. In this very narrow section, which must have lasted for almost a mile, it was often like night and we could hardly see a thing. Perhaps this was as well, we were now encountering a particularly large kind of spider that seemed to spin webs everywhere and to be on the top of every rock as we scrambled up on to it.
By now we were beginning to get tired and the constant repetition of swim, climb, swim, climb, swim became an automatic, almost zombie movement. At every corner we could look up at the thin strip of light many hundreds of feet above us that was becoming less like daylight and more like dusk. We started to move faster but the gorge began to take on the proportions of one of those nightmares where you run like mad to get away but when you stop it looks exactly the same and in fact you may not have moved at all.
Rounding a bend we heard a shout and recognised Dr. Aygen’s voice, a voice which encouraged us to make a final burst under a fallen tree trunk which served as a bridge at the end of the gorge. We just managed the last hundred yards to the car, to feast on water melons and figs; then it was dark and we were asleep.
We were all near the limits of endurance after the nine hours’ trip, but all agreed that the tremendous satisfaction and sense of achievement we felt afterwards made the effort well worth while.