Three Hawks Loop / TCT / Trails of Armenia
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 19.83 mi
- Elevation gain
- 4,846 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Difficult
- Elevation loss
- 5,554 ft
- Max elevation
- 7,305 ft
- TrailRank
- 39
- Min elevation
- 2,922 ft
- Trail type
- One Way
- Time
- 10 hours 20 minutes
- Coordinates
- 2873
- Uploaded
- August 5, 2020
- Recorded
- August 2020
near Hovk’, Tavush (አርሜኒያ)
Viewed 776 times, downloaded 37 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
One of the best trails of Tavush region, near Dilijan city is "Thre hawks Loop" ( Երեք բազեների արահետ ). The trail is marked by Trans Caucasian trails (TCT). You make a big loop near ''Sartsapat'' (Սառցապատ) mountain which has spectacular view.
Before hiking it, there is some essential information you need to know about this trail:
--- The main hiking trail is the ''loop'' part, so it's better to reach the loop starting point by 4X4 vehicle. In that case the hiking part will be not more than 20 km and you'll fully enjoy the nature.You can leave you car when the ''loop part'' starts.
--- The trail is marked by TCT, but don't hike there without GPS, as marking points are not everywhere and you can easily get lost if you relay only on the marks.
--- You start your trail from Hovk (Հովք) village and return there.
--- The first part of the trail (when loop part starts) is the difficult one, as there is no any path, few signs and you hike with the help of GPS.
--- Close to the last part of the loop you'll pass through forest, so arrange your time for passing it in daytime, not at night.
--- In the middle of the hike and after 15 km there are 3 sources of pure clean water, where you can fill you bottles but anyway take not less than 2 litres of water as sources can be get dried depending on season.
--- Season for this trail is from May till November (depends on snow), The best season is June, July, August (the grass is still green that period).
--- If you decide to hike the whole route it's better to start from early morning (5 AM) and have a medium-fast temp or hike it in 2 days.
---The length of the whole trail is 32 km.
Before hiking it, there is some essential information you need to know about this trail:
--- The main hiking trail is the ''loop'' part, so it's better to reach the loop starting point by 4X4 vehicle. In that case the hiking part will be not more than 20 km and you'll fully enjoy the nature.You can leave you car when the ''loop part'' starts.
--- The trail is marked by TCT, but don't hike there without GPS, as marking points are not everywhere and you can easily get lost if you relay only on the marks.
--- You start your trail from Hovk (Հովք) village and return there.
--- The first part of the trail (when loop part starts) is the difficult one, as there is no any path, few signs and you hike with the help of GPS.
--- Close to the last part of the loop you'll pass through forest, so arrange your time for passing it in daytime, not at night.
--- In the middle of the hike and after 15 km there are 3 sources of pure clean water, where you can fill you bottles but anyway take not less than 2 litres of water as sources can be get dried depending on season.
--- Season for this trail is from May till November (depends on snow), The best season is June, July, August (the grass is still green that period).
--- If you decide to hike the whole route it's better to start from early morning (5 AM) and have a medium-fast temp or hike it in 2 days.
---The length of the whole trail is 32 km.
Comments (1)
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Very nice trail with beautiful views. It doesn't include any summits. We started about 700 meters before the end of the village, it was impossible to get any further without a 4x4. We were 4 guys at a moderate tempo and it took us 7 hours and 45 minutes including a lunch break. We hitched a short ride on an army truck going up and we took a shortcut at the south-west part of the loop. I'm guessing we could've been doing 9 hours otherwise. We did the loop counter-clockwise which seems to be the best way of doing it, you'll reach the highest point sooner.
Definitely bring GPS for there are very few waymarkers and you'll be walking through large meadows. I didn't quite trust the water points since there's a lot of cattle grazing on the mountains.
We ran into some 4x4 cars driving up the mountain, it's too bad that they're allowed in.
Thank you to whomever made this trail and posted the GPX file.