ALADAGLAR MASSIF

Turkey, the Taurus Mountains

The decaying mountains of the Aladaglar massif. Photo by Vidmantas Balkūnas

The massif of Aladaglar lies in the eastern side of the Taurus Mountains. Cavers should be interested by the fact that it is one of the high-altitude karst massifs. Cave entrances are located at 2800 - 3600 m height above the sea-level. This massif is little explored yet very promising. Since 2000 Ukrainian cavers together with Turkish geologists explore the Aladaglar massif. The deepest discovered cave is Kuzgun (-1398 m). Also a lot of smaller caves are explored: Gulcitay (-185 m), Cosmos and many others (there are counted up to 150 caves).

More about Ukrainian expeditions in Aladaglar...

In autumn of 2005 the group of Lithuanian cavers arranged an expedition led by an experienced Lithuanian caving instructor Raimondas Daniunas and searched for new caves. Our achievements were not so astonishing but we learned that the Aladaglar massif is really promising and worth of further explorations. We intend to continue the research next year already.

Photos from our 2005 expedition in our galery.
Photos of 2006 expedition
Photos of 2008 expedition

Kuzgun



Depth: -1400 m
Length: 3187 m

Kuzgun is the second deepest cave not only in Turkey, but in all Asia also. At this moment the deepest cave in Turkey is Evren Gunay Mehmed Ali Dudeni (-1429 m). Kuzgun cave (in Turkish the Crown Cave) splits into two parallel branches at the depth of 480 m: the main branch goes east untill the depth of 1400 m, the branck Veterok goes southeast and ends up at the depth of 600 m. Kuzgun cave is rich in various cave formations (stalactites, stalagmites, helictites etc.).

The plan and profile of Kuzgun.