Normally, around Thanksgiving rock climbers migrate to the warm deserts of Moab to seek out the last bit of climbing for the season. It’s a trip I’ve done countless times so this year when my friend Akio and his partner Anju AKA akioanju told me they had a few clients lined up for a trip to Geyikbayiri and that they’d be doing some personal climbing at the tail end of the trip I wanted in. By the time November came a slew of familiar faces had booked tickets for a Thanksgiving rock climbing trip to Turkey so I finally booked my ticket.

Geyikbayiri is an amazing destination. It’s a climbers paradise - limestone cliffs surround a small valley about an hour away from Antalya and thousands of climbs await. While we were there, the first signs of fall started to set in and the valley’s green began to turn yellow; a sight I hope to catch in full swing the next time I’m back. Most days we woke up had breakfast, enjoyed Turkish coffee and walked beautiful approaches that took you through pomegranate groves, crystal blue swimming holes, and the occasional goat herd to the days crag.

I’ve waited a long time for a trip like this. Although I love climbing it gets repetitive for me. I visit the same crags each season and often hear the same conversations about the same climbs over and over. My climbing experience has always been trumped by photographing the experience. The rush of on-sighting a route is overshadowed by capturing a new image. The connection to the movements of a climb is eclipsed by connection to the history of the people first establishing climbs and so on and so forth. But, travel has always allowed me to quest into the unknown in the hopes of seeing how I interact in the world. Connecting with new people and figuring out new norms in a foreign country push me in a way that other things do not. In Turkey I finally found myself reengaged with climbing and reconnecting with a country I had not visited in over a decade so of course, it’s one of the best Thanksgiving climbing trips I’ve been on in a long time.