Mount Ararat: Finally Standing on Turkey's Highest Peak

Rising to 5,137 meters near Türkiye's eastern border, Mount Ararat has long captured the imagination of travelers, climbers, and historians alike. Associated with the story of Noah's Ark and surrounded by dramatic volcanic landscapes, it offers one of the most rewarding trekking experiences in the region.

Given what I do for a living and my personal passion for the outdoors, never having climbed Mount Ararat felt like a glaring gap in my story. Having led trekking tours across Turkey and many other countries, I found it hard to explain — even to myself — why I hadn't yet stood on my own country's highest summit, a mountain steeped in myth and forever linked to Noah's Ark.

Honestly, circumstances played a bigger role than I'd like to admit. In 2015, when our adventure travel agency was just getting off the ground, Ararat was closed to all climbing activity due to rising security concerns. By 2020, even as the pandemic raged on, we were hearing whispers of people making ascents — but officially, the mountain remained off-limits.

When 2023 arrived and a client I simply couldn't say no to came to me with a Mount Ararat request, I knew the time had finally come. The question of "Is it safe to climb Ararat?" no longer carried the weight it once did. That very year, mountaineers from neighboring countries and far-flung corners of the world were making the climb.

The request on the table was a custom comfort trek to the summit for a small group of eight North Americans — all over 65, but with serious credentials: Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro, Tibet, and a long list of comparable routes under their belts. The mountain's challenges were fairly well known to me, but what kept me thinking was the comfort side of the equation. In many climbing destinations across Asia and Africa, even those with lower HDI scores, there's a long, uninterrupted tradition of mountain tourism that has had decades to mature. Ararat was a different story — in a sense, it was rediscovering tourism after a long absence, slowly filling the gaps, with local operators in the region beginning to make long-term investments again. With the help of knowledgeable and reliable people on the ground, putting this trip together turned out to be less of a challenge than I'd expected. 4x4 transfers to the 2,700-meter trailhead, spacious private tents with single occupancy for each participant, sleeping pad setups, special dietary requirements, hot meals at every camp, and a post-summit cocktail — we took care of it all without a hitch.

On August 30th, 2023 — Victory Day, one of Turkey's most celebrated national holidays — I set foot on the summit of Mount Ararat. I'm sharing the photos from this scouting trip with you here!