Mud...

Today was a day of mud. It snowed in the night but we had stopped only been just below the snow line so weren't suprised and shared last nights washing up for the plessure of the warm water. With the snow fallen, the clouds and fog had cleared to leave us with awesomely beautiful views and throughout the whole day it just seemed to keep on getting even better. Every time I looked up the impressive sight took my breath away again, especially when other snowy mountains beyond the sunny plain below began to reveal themselves. We had managed to fall asleap at 8.30 last night so we were up by six with ease although we spent a lond time doing 'housekeeping' jobs to enable the ice to melt off both the inside and outside of the windows, (this was my passenger side window 'view'). Once ready we headed on up the track. It got snowier and snowier. Eventually we reached a steep uphill bit which we only just made it up and then it got more snowy so we stopped at an alternative track and we took a long walk up our origional one to choose which way to go. It got increasingly deep, drifting into static wave formations in places and we quickly decided that we would be going the other way but walked up to the crest to see what the track was like beyond this and see the view. I'm afraid, completely unfit as I currently am, I gave up about half way and left Alex to it- I was amazed at how tiring I was finding it and how stiff my legs were later, it wasn't that far. More exercise required I think. We started on the alternative route back that decended back into our original valley but chose a track of this that way a more exciting route. This turned out to be a bad idea. It was suddely very muddy again and then very steep. We decided to reverse the short way back again, and couldn't. It wasn't a cliff edge but it was a fairly steep and continuous hill down to the bottom of the valley on one side. I the end the 'waffle boards' came to the rescue, (apparently they aren't sand planks) and we got back up by me running around and wedging them under two of the wheels in the two places we were got truely stuck, Alex with his foot firmly on the foot brake to avoid decending again. We made a very good team, despite it being a bit hairy in places and me getting fair covered in the slippy mud. Glad of the adventure but a little crestfallen that we had been unable to crest these mountians via thi=e interesting route we headed back down and around to the motorway route. I suggested ALex come back with Thomas to these hills next summer as there were tonnes of tracks everywhere to sxplore but he point3d out that in the summer they would all be mud and snow free which wouldn't make them challenging at all! We didn't get too far along but we did enjoy more constantly stunning views and find a nice place to park up above the lake, (the result of a dammed river) just north of Adana. We took a half hearted very short walk down the track towards the lake in the moonlight but spotted the light from two cmpfires on the beach so decided not to disturb folk. We really MUST try and get a little fitter though... Appologies for typos, no time to check over today