Trekking Mount Ararat: Turkey’s Highest Peak

The expedition begins and ends at Iğdır airport in far eastern Turkey. Flights are not included. Most guests fly from the UK via Istanbul, and your leader will advise on the recommended routing and timings so the group travels together. Allow generous connection times, and note that Day 1 is a travel day, so book to arrive at Iğdır on the morning of Day 2 and to depart on Day 8. Check your booking against those days before you pay.

Entry requirements for Turkey vary by nationality and have changed in recent years, with some nationalities now visa free for short tourist stays and others needing an e-visa obtained online in advance. Your passport should have at least six months validity beyond your travel dates. Confirm the current position for your own nationality against official guidance well before departure, and again shortly before you fly.

Mount Ararat sits in a permit controlled area and an official climbing permit is required, arranged in advance with the names and passport details of everyone in the group. We handle this, but it needs your passport details early, so add them to your guest portal as soon as you book. Nobody can be added at short notice. This is also a border region, so carry your passport at all times, expect military checkpoints on the roads, and follow your guide's lead at them.

Travel insurance is mandatory and there is one specific thing to check. Your policy must cover trekking to at least 5,137 metres and it must cover the use of crampons and an ice axe, which many policies exclude as winter mountaineering even when they cover trekking to altitude. Mountain rescue and repatriation cover matters here too, since this is a remote region. Read the activity list rather than assuming, and upload your policy number and your insurer's 24 hour emergency number to your guest portal before departure.

This is rated Hard. No previous mountaineering experience is required and there is no technical climbing, but you do need a good level of fitness. Summit day is around eighteen hours from leaving the tent to arriving at base camp, including roughly 900 metres of ascent and 1,900 metres of descent, at altitude, starting at one in the morning. If you can comfortably manage five or six hours of hill walking with 800 metres of ascent on consecutive days, you are in the right place.

The summit is 5,137 metres and the highest sleeping altitude is high camp at 4,200 metres. The itinerary includes a dedicated acclimatisation day climbing to 4,200 metres and returning to sleep at 3,200 metres, which is the single most important day of the trip. Mild symptoms are common and normal: headache, breathlessness, poor sleep and loss of appetite. Worsening headache, vomiting, breathlessness at rest, confusion or unsteadiness require descent, and the guides monitor the group daily with oximeters.

The upper mountain carries a permanent snow and ice cap, so crampons are worn and an ice axe carried for the summit push. No previous experience is needed and the team runs a full briefing before you step onto ice, but you must arrive with crampons that fit your boots, which means a stiff soled boot rated to take them. Hire can be arranged with advance notice. Compatibility is checked in Doğubayazıt at the start of the trip.

You camp for four nights on the mountain, three at base camp at 3,200 metres and one at high camp at 4,200 metres, in shared tents with the crew pitching camp and cooking hot meals. There are no facilities beyond what the team carries in, no showers and no charging. Nights are cold at base camp and considerably colder at high camp, so a four season sleeping bag is essential. It is simple, and it is also why the mountain feels like yours.

This departure runs in early July, in the main summer climbing season on Ararat. Doğubayazıt is hot and dry, often in the low thirties Celsius. It gets steadily colder with height: cool at base camp, cold at high camp, and well below freezing on the summit before dawn with significant wind chill. The upper mountain holds snow and ice year round. Pack for both extremes, which is not an exaggeration.

Full board is provided at the Doğubayazıt hotel and all meals are provided on the mountain, with hot food and drinks throughout the climb, cooked by the mountain crew. The food is simple, hearty and plentiful, which is exactly what you want at altitude. All water on the mountain is purified before drinking, and you should carry at least three litres of capacity plus your own purification as a backup. Dietary requirements can be accommodated, since everything is carried in, so add them to your guest portal when you book.

The currency is the Turkish lira. Cards are widely accepted in Doğubayazıt but you will need cash for tips, the Turkish bath, small purchases and anything on the road. There is no way to spend or withdraw money on the mountain, so draw what you need before you head up. ATMs are available in Doğubayazıt and Iğdır. Spend or change remaining lira before you fly home.

Tips for the mountain guides, the cook and the support crew are not included and are an important part of how mountain work is paid for here. Your expedition leader will advise sensible amounts, and the group traditionally puts it together and hands it over on the final evening. Bring this money in cash, in lira.

After the descent we visit a traditional hammam, which is included and which most guests describe as one of the best parts of the trip. Expect hot marble, steam, a vigorous scrub and a wash. Baths are usually separated by gender or run separate sessions. Bring swimwear or a towel wrap, and your leader will brief you on what to expect beforehand, since it is unfamiliar to most British visitors.

See a travel clinic or your GP well before departure to discuss Turkey and high altitude trekking. Routine vaccinations plus hepatitis A are commonly recommended. Stomach upsets are the main non altitude risk and are much more serious at 4,200 metres than at home, so purify all water, use hand sanitiser before eating, and carry rehydration sachets. Bring personal medication in hand luggage in original packaging. Any discussion of preventative altitude medication is for your own doctor.

The expedition operates in Ağrı and Iğdır provinces in far eastern Turkey, close to the Iranian and Armenian borders. We work with established local operators and the area we use is a well travelled mountaineering region, but it is sensible to read the current UK government travel advice for Turkey before you book and again before you travel, as you would anywhere. Carry your passport, expect checkpoints and follow your guide's lead.

The group is capped at ten and the trip is for adults aged eighteen and over. It suits solo travellers, couples and groups of friends who are fit, curious and want a real mountain without needing technical skills. It works particularly well as a first five thousand metre peak, and equally well for experienced trekkers who want somewhere genuinely uncrowded. Solo travellers are common and very welcome.

Your passport and flight details, insurance policy number and your insurer's 24 hour emergency number, medical information, emergency contacts and dietary requirements all go into your guest portal. Add your passport details as soon as you book, because the climbing permit depends on them. Everything else must be there no later than four weeks before departure.