I have a whole heap of renewed respect for my Ma and Pa (especially Dad since he is a snowboarder) skiing with two little kids back in the day. I’ve spent the past week playing mother duckling to the girls on the ski fields. T-bars, chairlifts, ski poles and snowploughs suddenly became a whole new challenge. (Three days of skiing on my own and no aches and pains, one hour of snowploughs with the girls and I’ve discovered leg muscles I didn’t know existed.) The girls had two weeks off for school holidays and for the second half we drove 3 hours East from Istanbul to Kartalkaya, Bolu. I couldn’t quite believe there would be a ski field, let alone snow to ski on as we were driving. 18 degrees, and not a mountain to be seen – even after parking the car at the bottom and jumping into a prebooked hotel car to drive us up. But suddenly, out of nowhere, appeared a whole heap of snow in a valley and a fairly impressive ski resort.
We stayed in the Grand Kartal Hotel, a large all-inclusive that provided ski passes, three meals a day and all the sahlep, hot chocolate and mulled wine one might want. There was a warm swimming pool to kick around in after a long day’s skiing, and a sauna, spa and hamam which we didn’t take advantage of.
The slopes themselves were similar to NZ skiing. Nothing too difficult, but great for the girls as beginners. The first few days were very windy and I spent my time on the slopes closest to the hotel while the girls had lessons. The third day the wind dropped and I headed over the top to the other side of the mountain where a grand total of six skiiers and boarders had carved into the piste. It was pretty weird standing on the side of a sunny mountain at 12pm with only a couple of tracks in front of me, and not a sound to be heard. I think all in all there would’ve been about 300 people on the entire mountain skiing, and not many of them left the t-bar on the blue slope or the main chair lift. The other side had potential for some awesome off-piste skiing but it was pretty icy (and whipped up into lovely meringue peaks) and since I didn’t have a helmet, and there was absolutely no one around I decided to take it easy.
The weather was pretty good, very windy for 4/5 days, but one day when the wind dropped and the sun was shining was absolutely fantastic. The Sunday was the busiest day of the week, I read somewhere that because of the proximity to Ankara and Istanbul many people come for the day, plus there are buses arranged by travel agencies the drop off early morning and return in the evening.
I have no idea of the costs involved, but I imagine its pricier than skiing in NZ. The hotels (Grand Kartal and Kartal) are all inclusive and supply the lift passes. I couldn’t work it out but there is actually a whole other side to the mountain with some good-looking pistes, which I think were all attached to an newer, fancier hotel directly opposite the Kartals. (Called Kayak World or something similar. Kayak means Ski in Turkish, how confusing.)
I think this was only my second time ever skiing without my family, I missed my folks a bit! There weren’t too many people my age staying at the resort – I think mainly because it’s pretty family orientated and there isn’t much of a apres-ski scene. I think there are a few other resorts around Turkey more well known but much busier.
