Gito Plateau

About this place

At Gito you do not look up at the clouds; you stand above them. Around 2,070 m up in Çamlıhemşin district, on many days the valley below the meadow fills at dawn and again before sunset with a thick white sea, mountain summits floating on its surface, until nothing is left of the world but a few timber yayla houses, green grass and you. The Turks call it the 'sea of clouds', and in the past decade it has turned a forgotten summer pasture into one of the most photographed spots in the Black Sea highlands. The name itself is said, in local folk etymology, to come from 'Kıto', the scarce place, because the meadow once had almost no water. Getting there is half the story. From Rize you drive about an hour and a quarter to the town of Çamlıhemşin, and from there it is 31 km of mountain road up the Fırtına and then the Çat valley: the first part is surfaced, but the final climb to the plateau is narrow and steep, concreted in stretches in recent years yet still rough, and not advisable in an ordinary car, let alone an ordinary rental. Most visitors take a jeep tour from Ayder or Çamlıhemşin, which often bundles the Pokut, Sal, Badara and Gito plateaus into one six-to-eight-hour day, or hire a 4x4 with a local driver who knows the track. Allow roughly three hours from Rize to reach the top; the road itself, with its waterfalls and old stone bridges, is part of the pleasure. Be honest with yourself before booking: nobody guarantees the sea of clouds. Fog can swallow the whole plateau so you see no further than your own shoulder, or you may arrive on a crisp clear day and find a lovely meadow and a view of the Kaçkar range with no clouds beneath it. The best odds are at first light and late afternoon, which is why photographers sleep in the plain wooden pension houses that serve a village breakfast, more or less the only facilities up here. The season runs June to October, snow closes the road in winter, and even in August you will want a jacket; the temperature drops fast once the sun goes. For Gulf families escaping the summer heat, Gito is a superb mountain outing provided everyone can stomach the winding jeep ride, which is hard on small children and on anyone prone to car sickness, and a pushchair has no business on the sloping grass. If you want the view with a little less effort, Pokut has a shorter climb and a similar outlook, but Gito remains slightly higher and more open to the clouds.