Bursa may be a big city, but the great outdoors is never very far away...

A friend and I recently went for a hike from Heykel up to the lookout (Bakacak yeri) on Uludağ. It was a crisp Wednesday morning, with a bit of fog floating on the mountain top. We started our hike at 9:30 a.m. and rather than take the easy way to the trail base (i.e. by dolmuş to either the Teleferik area or Zeyniler village), we decided to walk the whole way. We passed Maksem area and cut over to the Teleferik.

Just to the east of this is a little known historic graveyard for Christians. Currently, it is a graveyard and park all-in-one. After this brief history stop, we continued on a more inclined trajectory up to Zeyniler village. When it became possible to get off the road, we started on a side path, which we walked for the next several hours. Part of our goal for the day was to be out in nature, discover some a new path that my friend had seen in the past, but hadn’t yet taken. Getting to the lookout point at the Hotel area of Uludağ would be the bonus if we made it that far.

We came across a handful of men out collecting chestnuts on the mountain side. One of the men, who made sure to mention that he was 70 years old, started out at 6 a.m. and was just now finishing. According to him, we were too late if we too wanted to gather chestnuts. Apparently, the flocks of chestnut enthusiasts had been scouring the hillsides and no chestnuts remained. Over the course of the next few hours, we sporadically came across men finding some success in scrounging up a small harvest. It was at this point that my friend and I pulled out a sac and began collecting the chesnuts just lying along the path!

We slowly progressed upwards, bending down to pick up 1, 2, and sometimes even 10+ chestnuts at the foot of a tree that happened to coincide with our chosen path. We didn’t even have to open the chestnut shells as it was late in the season, the chestnuts remaining were just there for the taking. By the time we got to an elevation that there were no more chestnut trees, we had collected about 2 kilos. I tucked the bag away and we continued at a quicker pace, but were then met with a steeper incline. We pressed on, resting often to take a quick breath. These short breaks provided great opportunities for pleasant conversation and reminded me how enjoyable is it to get into nature with friends.

We came to the intersection where my friend had been previously, but not yet traversed. We set off on a new path, making notes throughout the day and comparing our tracking apps. My friend used Wikiloc and I used Mapmyrun. Due to GPS glitches, Wikiloc added significant kilometers to our journey whereas Mapmyrun seemed to do a satisfactory job. Because Wikiloc is a outdoor trail tracking app, we had hoped it would be a good option to suggest to others, as users can collectively share trails they have taken. One added plus of Wikiloc is that along your hike, you can take pictures of the trail to add for future reference and to share with the larger hiking community.

We made our final ascent just short of Çoban Kaya (Shepherd Boulder). We counted the cost of pushing onward, but in the end getting back to Heykel before nightfall seemed a wiser decision. On the decent, we crossed through open prairies, newly logged forests, and occasionally marked trails. Our route put us along the National Park access road where a new gas line was being put in by the city to help develop the park. The men were wrapping up their days’ work and piling into their trucks heading down the mountain through the blanket of fog. We again turned off the beaten path, and stole off onto a small trail. My friend had taken this path previously but had not recorded the progression of correct trail divisions, so we took the opportunity to map out our decent on the crest of one of the mountain’s valleys. After passing by Hünkâr Köşkü Müzesi (Sultan Villa Museum), and retracing some of our steps in the city proper, we arrived to Heykel at 6:30 p.m. tired, but pleased by our successful jaunt in the mountains.

Overall, we had an excellent trip and although we did not make it to the lookout, we accomplished in a refreshing and rejuvenating time on the mountain.

What are your Bursa hiking experiences?

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