Wading the river
Past the boardwalk you wade knee-deep through icy water between walls around 300 metres high; this is the whole reason to come.
Eyeintheair — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Buda2000 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Buda2000 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tevfik Teker — CC BY 3.0
In the thick of August, when the Fethiye coast is nudging forty degrees, people drive an hour inland to wade through water at roughly five degrees Celsius. That is the real promise of Saklıkent: an 18 km crack in the mountains with walls rising around 300 metres, in places so narrow the sky disappears overhead, and a cold mountain river running along the floor. It has been a national park since 1996 and sits about 45 km south-east of Fethiye in Seydikemer district, roughly an hour by car or by the dolmuş that leaves Fethiye's bus station a few times a day in summer. Most visitors come in a hire car or on an organised tour; the road is paved to the entrance. The visit starts on a wooden walkway bolted to the cliff, a few hundred metres above the river. This stretch is manageable for almost everyone, grandparents and small children included, though a pushchair will not get through. Then the boards end and the adventure begins: you wade knee-deep, sometimes deeper, over slippery stones and a strong current, and go as far as you like between the walls. Most people manage a kilometre or two and turn back; the tourist section is only around 4 km in any case, and beyond that you need canyoning kit and a guide. Water shoes are the one thing not to skimp on: flip-flops vanish with the first current, and the replacements sold at the entrance are not cheap. A frank word for families: children over seven or eight enjoy this more than anything else around Fethiye; younger ones are hard to carry through the deeper crossings and are better off with one parent on the walkway and in the restaurants. The restaurants are part of the point: cushioned wooden platforms built straight over the stream, serving trout and gözleme while you dangle your feet in the icy water. Prices run higher than in town, but you are paying for the spot, not the food. Outside the gate are mud baths and short tubing runs on the river, harmless entertainment and no more. Timing decides everything. The gorge opens only from spring to autumn, and in spring the snowmelt runs high and dangerous, so the inner canyon shuts and only the walkway stays open. Summer is the season, and the very heat that drives everyone off the beaches is what makes the freezing water a blessing. Go in the morning before the tour coaches, allow two to three hours for the whole thing, then carry on to the ruins of Tlos on the same road; that is the loop most one-day trips from Fethiye follow.
Past the boardwalk you wade knee-deep through icy water between walls around 300 metres high; this is the whole reason to come.
Cushioned wooden platforms built straight over the river serve trout and gözleme while your feet cool in the water.
The Lycian ruins of Tlos lie on the same road, and most one-day trips from Fethiye combine the two.
Kayadibi, Seydikemer, Muğla
The boardwalk suits everyone except pushchairs, but the wading only really becomes fun from about seven or eight upwards; younger children have to be carried through the deep parts and get cold fast. With little ones, treat the gorge as a lunch stop on the way to Tlos rather than the point of the day.
From winter until around April the water section is closed because the river runs high and dangerous, leaving only the boardwalk and whichever restaurants are open. On a spring trip treat it as a view from the walkway, not an adventure; summer is the only season that does the place justice.
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