High Sierra Topix

Not that I know anything about hiking in the Middle East, or that I should be judgmental, but why the hell would anyone choose to go hiking on the border of Iran and Iraq?

(from an AP feed) The area where the three disappeared is a popular hiking destination known for a picturesque waterfall and rocky scenery as well as a thick growth of fruit and nut trees. The official said camping equipment and two backpacks apparently belonging to the Americans were found in the area and it seemed they were hiking above the waterfall when they accidentally crossed the border.

It might be a nice place to visit, but at this time, only if you're heavily armed , have close air support from an armed, unmanned US drone, and you KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

Agreed though, war zone hiking.. hmm. Not quite as bad as trying to walk into a Yosemite trailhead w/o a wilderness permit, but close..

Eastern Turkey has some stunningly beautiful mountains which are (or were) barely visited. I went to the Kackar mountains in NE Turkey in 1992 on a university expedition and we saw two other groups of hikers in two weeks of walking. This was hardly surprising because there weren't any published maps - we used a 1:250K scale map drawn up in the 1940s by the British Army for most of our trip (you could tell they had never been there because several of the valleys/passes were in completely the wrong place and since there is severe fog in the valleys for most of the summer, we spent quite a while wandering round trying to figure out where on earth we were - of course Google Earth makes it a lot easier nowadays). Below is a picture of one lake where we camped (sorry about the poor quality scan of my very old photo)
We avoided the southeast of the country (including Mt Ararat which we had originally intended to climb) because at that time there were problems with attacks/abductions by Kurdish separatists. I think if you were in the right place (i.e. not on the border with Iran!) you could have a wonderful experience, especially because the locals are incredibly welcoming - we were offered tea virtually every day and in one case the daughter of the family we met was sent off to milk their cow so we could have fresh milk.

Apparently some people just miss the obvious....