Ski Resorts in Turkey

Major contributions to this article from Roz.

The Turkish ski season generally lasts from December to late March or early April, and sometimes longer in the east of the country. While there are no expansive resorts of the kind seen in the Alps, Turkish ski resorts are well equipped and professionally run. T-bar draglifts are the most common, with the odd chair-lift and a gondola at Palandoken. Snowboarding is growing fast and boarders welcomed everywhere.

Palandoken draws some foreign skiers from Ukraine and Iraq. Otherwise most skiers in Turkey are locals. This means resorts are often crowded at weekends and empty in the week.As with many aspects of life here, queueing for ski-lifts is not done in the way expats may be accustomed. Skiing is a sport for the moneyed classes so only the wealthiest Turks ski, and they like to do so in the latest equipment.

Equipment hire is usually available and the skis and boards are of a good standard. Rates vary from resort to resort, but in 2009 a set of skis, boots and poles was available for 35-45 liras a day in Kartalkaya at a weekend.

Most resorts offer ski-passes on a daily rate for day-trippers and all-in packages for those who are staying in resort hotels. In 2008 weekend day passes at Kartalkaya were 70 liras on a Friday and 80 liras for Saturday and Sunday. By contrast, a ski pass and full board (with unlimited beer) for a mid-week night at the Dorukkaya Hotel was available for around 110 liras.

In general hotels build and run their own lifts, so you may find yourself having to pay extra to use lifts of other hotels. In other words, it's unlikely that your skipass will cover the entire system of lifts.
Contents

• Bolu - Kartalkaya

Hotels
Day trips and Tours

• Bursa - Uludag

Hotels

• Erzurum - Palandoken

Hotels at Palandoken
Erzurum city hotels

• Kayseri - Erciyes
• Antalya - Saklikent
• Kars - Sarikamis
• Kocaeli - Kartepe
• Ankara - Elmadag
• Ilgaz

Bolu - Kartalkaya

Kartal (Eagle) Mountain in Bolu Province, about half-way between Ankara and Istanbul is the site of the Kartalkaya ski centre. While not as flash as Uludag, or as extensive as Palandoken, Kartalkaya combines easy access from Ankara and Istanbul with a good range of slopes. It's very busy at the weekends but often delightfully empty on weekdays.

You can reach Kartalkaya from the main Istanbul - Ankara highway. Coming from Istanbul, the exit is about 10 km after Bolu. The winding road up the mountain (snow chains recommended) is 28 km. Kartakaya is surrounded by pinewoods, at an elevation of between 1500 and 2200 m. There's equipment for hire, and ski instructors (with very limited English) are available, charging about 80 liras for an hour of one-on-one tuition. Try asking for group rates.

The resort is divided into two areas. The Grand Kartal and Kartal Hotels provide runs and lifts on one side of the mountain, while the Dorukkaya slopes are on the other side. There's not a lot of difference between the two. The Dorukkaya encourages snowboarders and offers them a park of jumps and rails. It's possible to ski off-piste between the two areas but ski-passes for one won't work in the other (although lift attendants don't always check).

Hotels

Grand Kartal

Supposedly the most luxurious of the three, though there isn't much in it.

Kartal Hoteli

Info welcome

Dorukkaya

The Dorukkaya hotel's ski room opens straight onto a wide nursery slope, which may be its main advantage over the other two hotels, both of which require beginners to handle a steep, narrow run down to a draglift they must ride to get to the nursery slope.

Day trips and Tours

Day trip tours (normally Sundays) can be arranged from Ankara with Tempo Tur charging 115 TL (2009) for a bus which leaves Tunalı Hilmi at 6 a.m., gets to the slopes at 9 a.m., and heads for home at 5 p.m.. The cost does not include ski rental hire but does include a day lift pass. Tempo Tur also arranges longer trips. The main advantage of taking a tour is not having to worry about the driving.

RadikalTur organize tours to Kartalkaya out of Istanbul.

Bursa - Uludag

Uludag, about 30 kms south of Bursa is Turkey's high society ski centre, where the beautiful people go to queue-barge and wear face-paint. It can be reached as a day trip from Istanbul via the ferry over the Marmara Sea.

The high speed ferries to Yalova leave from several places in Istanbul. We left from Pendik with the car on a ferry that leaves every 75min from 7am to 11pm. The drive between Yalova and Uludag is around 65km, pretty simple and well sign-posted. We had a satnav in the car, but you could easily just follow the signs. Allow about 90 minutes for the journey as the road to Uludag itself is quite wiggly, although pretty well maintained.

Hotels

Most accommodation is on a full board basis - check to see what is and isn't included.

We decided to make our lives as difficult as possible - we turned up as a group of four on one of the busiest weekends of the season, wanting only a one night stay (as opposed to the usual two night package). It's do-able, but take a turkish speaker with you!!

We shared a room and paid 170YTL each for full board in the Atasu Otel. This included breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and night soup - although drinks were not included. It was a good deal for what we got, but we found better at the Agaoglu Hotel (shame they were full that weekend!). http://en.agaoglumyresort.com.tr/

The hotel has a swimming pool and hammam, all food and drink is included in their prices and their bar and lounge area was really nice. They also hire skis on-site. The real beauty however, is that the company own five ski lifts. If you're staying at the hotel then their lift pass is half price (so 30YTL per day), and you can pretty much ski anywhere.

Ski lifts in Uludag are all owned independantly. We happily paid 20YTL to realise that it was only for that lift - all the others had similar prices and can work out to be ludicrously expensive!!! (although we recommend the 'x trips for xYTL' packages if you're doing that - sounds expensive, but works out cheaper). There are also two ski areas - the main area of town, and 'Zone 2', which is away from the main area (and a good walk away), although the runs are longer and it seems to have been a lot better organised.

The Aglaoglu lift pass includes major lifts from all areas, and is clearly the best deal in resort. Their lifts are roughly the ones marked 2,4,6,9 and 13 on this pistemap for Uludag http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Uludag/pistemap , (This is me comparing their details with the overall piste map so I may not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea)

Hiring ski gear is easy - we found a brilliant little place next to the Geceren lift, which spoke good english and charged us 15YTL for skis and poles, or 20YTL with boots too. The skis are all pretty much race styles that are at least 6 years out of date by European standards, they will sell you shorter skis that you are used to and they've never even noticed the DIN settings on the bindings, but hey!! it's Turkey!!

In short, it's a great weekend road trip but an even better weekday trip... most Turks just show up for the weekend, so the place is even cheaper and virtually empty Monday to Friday. You can leave Istanbul at 7am and be on the slopes by midday (with nothing organised in advance). Highly recommended!

(For a full account of our weekend, see the 'Four Go Up to Uludag' blogs in the blog section of the forum)

Erzurum - Palandoken

A 6 km drive from the city of Erzurum in eastern Turkey, and 10 km from the airport, the Palandoken resort is the biggest in Turkey, boasting longer runs than its western rivals. It's also higher, at 2200 to 3100 m with some of the longest and most difficult courses and best snow conditions in Turkey. It's hosting a student games in 2010 and will benefit from more investment as a result.

Reaching the slopes means taking a gondola lift from the central village, where there are ski-hire shops and a cafe. The gondola is run by the local ski club and reasonably priced at one lira a ride in 2008.

The Dedeman Hotel sits at the top of the mountain, where it has its own network of lifts. The Polat is lower down the mountain. It has a small network of its own and a chair that carries you from the hotel, over a swimming pool and down the road to the bottom of the gondola.

Skiers could also opt to stay in the city of Erzurum and take a cab every morning to the bottom of the gondola: from town it's about 15 liras.

It's possible to ski only using the gondola. Since this takes you to the top of the mountain, most runs are accessible, including the very long run round the back of the mountain. There are a few areas that are only reached with the Dedeman pass.

Hotels at Palandoken

Polat Renaissance

Five-star, comfortable but a bit soulless.

Dedeman

(Information welcome)

Erzurum city hotels

Kral Hoteli

Has refused to give rooms to unmarried couples.

(Information welcome.)

Kayseri - Erciyes

This ski centre lies at 2150 m on the eastern face of Mount Erciyes, 25 km from Kayseri.

Antalya - Saklikent

Heard the cliche about Turkey: where you can ski in the morning and swim in the Mediterranean in the afternoon? Saklikent's to blame. It's 50 km northwest of Antalya, at a height of 2000 m.
[edit] Kars - Sarikamis

(Information welcome.)

Kocaeli - Kartepe

Although relatively a new resort for Istanbulites, being 125 km drive away from Istanbul, makes this spot attractive for the ski aficionado in Istanbul. Especially for people, who wants to drive to their resort, rather than taking a bus / tour.

Haluk thinks that, comparatively it should be cheaper than Kartalkaya and Uludag.

The altitude is between 1150 - 1640 m.

The following link is a hotel's website, and is has very useful info about Kartepe, such as directions to get there, current snow info and general info about slopes. Though the hotel seems to be an expensive option for Kartepe, cheaper deals should be available.

Green Park Resort

http://www.karteperesort.com/

Ankara - Elmadag

Hardly a ski-resort, more of a ski-run, Elmadag is at least easily reached from Ankara. It's 23 km outside the city.

Ilgaz

Between Kastamonu and Cankiri at the junction of the Istanbul- Kastamonu, Ankara-Kastamonu roads. In the llgaz National Park amidst beautiful woodlands the slopes lie at 1820-2000m.