Turkey offers a wide variety of different hunts for the travel minded and adventurous hunter. We headed up in the mountains where both the risk of avalanches and the thin air made the hunt for the Anatolian chamois both tough and challenging.

The chamois is on a grass slope between two ridges that fall out and down from the actual mountain top a few hundred meters further up. The chamois is standing in a steep terrain and is still too far out for the hunter to even consider taking a shot. He must get closer, and he holds all the right cards in his hand. The chamois is not aware of the human presence in the valley, and the hunter’s Turkish guide, Kamil LiLigum, is in radio contact with another guide, Zeki Celik, on the opposite ridge. Zeki tells us on the radio that the chamois is moving downwards towards less steep terrains. The success of this mountain hunt seems to come a little too easy.

Avalanches!

Although the present situation appears easy, when you detach yourself a bit from it it’s far from being the case. In fact, the hunter has been in exactly these mountains and at exactly this place about seven months ago. On the first day of the hunt he came near a male chamois. It was in the same spot we are in right now, but since it was a young animal, the hunter decided to not to take it. He had many hunting days left, so he counted on being able to find an older one.

That very same day, he experienced two avalanches at a very close range, triggered by the melting snow from the ending Winter. One avalanche thundered down the mountain, where he 20 minutes before had been, while the other a little later ran down the mountain a few hundred meters below him.

The last days of the trip drowned in a blizzard, and when it finally cleared up on the last day, the authorities closed the hunting in the mountains due to the risk of further avalanches. By then, there had fallen 60 cm new snow on top of the old snow.

The last day of the hunting trip in was therefore used in an almost hopeless attempt to find chamois in low-lying forested areas. All the hunting party saw that day was completely fresh tracks of a bear that had just left its hibernation, but symptomatic of the hunters failing luck on the trip, he never even saw the bear itself.

From easy to difficult

Today in early October, everything looks quite different. The hunter and Kamil just need to climb about 200 meters higher up and slightly to the left to be within range of the group of chamois. If the sole female chamois, which keeps watching alertly from high up on the rocks, moves down behind the ridge to the other animals in the herd, it will be possible to get within 50-100 meters of the group. A scenario that normally is unheard of when hunting in the mountains.

The scenario changes in an instant into a typical mountain hunting situation: The wind changes direction and the female chamois senses human presence and makes a single warning signal. Within a short time, our spotter on the other side of the mountain informs us through a crackling radio link that the animals have passed the highest pass. The hunt changes from being too easy to seemingly excruciatingly difficult.

Kamil knows that the chamois will often stop by a small lake to graze on the other side of the peaks. The hunter follows the guide over the course of the next hours across the steep mountain passages and over ridges strewn with rocks and large stones. Step by step, they approach slowly the place where the animals are expected to be.

Often, they wade through melting snow up to their knees while they try to hold their balance with the help of the indispensable walking stick. Some places are so steep that any loss of concentration may well have disastrous consequences. They find themselves in an altitude of over three kilometers, and the hunter seems to suffer a bit under the thin air influence on oxygen uptake.

Finally, Kamil spots the herd. He guides the hunter along the last and highest peak in the massif, and they get into in position. A strenuous trip has reached its climax. The shot, which has required two trips to Turkey, is close to being taken.

Avalanche mountains

This search of the Anatolian chamois, which is one of 10 subspecies of chamois, takes place in the Kaçkar Mountains in northeastern Turkey near the border to Georgia. Freely translated, Kaçkar means mountains where the snow runs, or even more freely translated, avalanche mountains.

Both guides and hunter live during the hunting trip in a 100-year-old cottage, that is still being used today by shepherds during the Summer. The hunter has slept well in the cottage the night before this day's hunt and he is not yet tired despite the long climb towards the mountain tops. And what chamois hunter would be tired when the herd of chamois is located just 180 meters below?

Male or female?

Somewhere in the snow just above the chamois herd, a few young animals fight. So far, the game is considered childish play, but the game will eventually become both serious and formidable. Rut fights among the old males are spectacular. But right now, there are no visible signs the approaching rut in November is affecting the herd. Except that a single buck has joined the herd.

Both male and female chamois have horns, and therefore it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. Kamil doesn’t seem to have much experience with the selection of the right animals, nor does he speak languages other than Turkish, so it’s up to the hunter himself to select the right animal to take.

The hunter spends some time identifying the male chamois, which to begin with is hidden. The buck suddenly comes out of the shadows and shows himself. The time has come. If the hunter wants to take the shot, it must be now.

45 kg on the back

The sound of the shot echoes through the valley as the chamois falls to the ground and rolls a bit down the mountain, while the herd disperses in a fast run up to the steep slopes close to the shot site. The shot was taken at an altitude of 3,200 meters after a very intense hunt, which went from being a little too easy to being very challenging.

What remains is for the spotter on the other side of the valley to climb the same route as the hunter, which took the hunter nearly five hours. This climb is done by the skinny 46-year-old spotter in one hour. After his arrival he replaces Kamil, who singlehandedly carries the 45 kg chamois from the valley back up to the shooting position.

The spotter commences the long walk down and makes sure the hunter understands that the walk down will be just a big a challenge as going up. It is a tired mountain hunter who with a smile on his face follows the guides down from the mountains. They are heading for the reward – chamois stew with garlic, cooked over the old stove in the cottage. In just the same way hard working mountain shepherds and mountain hunters has done for last 100 years.

Here are some more photos from the trip: