Palovit Waterfall

Turkey’s eastern Black Sea coast is a land of high mountains, capped with snow and glaciers, with forested valleys wreathed in cloud and lashed by rain. Gorges carve their way through the mountains, with creeks, swollen year-round by melt and rain, raging through them. With so much water racing to the sea, its no surprise that Rize is home to many beautiful waterfalls.

The Palovit stream flows down from the high peaks of the Kaçkar Mountains in the south down to the sea. At 3900 meters, the Kaçkar Mountains, which take their name from the Armenian word Khachkar, a monumental stone carved with a cross, are the highest mountains in the Pontic Alps.

Flowing year round, the Palovit Stream has carved out a canyon-like valley through which it flows, the walls of which are covered in the greenery of plants that cling to the rocky walls. The stream rushes round a bend, before dropping fifteen metres into a pool below. You can view the falls from above or descend into the lower gorge by a set of stairs disguised as a log (This stair was closed for maintenance when we visited). If you go down near the foot of the falls, be prepared to get wet as the air is full of mist and spray even when the falls are at their quietest at the end of summer.

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