Words: Daniel Rönnbäck 2018-01-18 14:44:56
Snow whips our faces as we gear up, preparing for our first day of skiing in Turkey. We’d landed in Kayseri only a few hours before; now the city and its one million citizens are completely obscured by the storm. So is our objective, the 12,851-foot summit of Mount Erciyes, nearly 6,900 feet above us. Still, we’ve flown halfway across Europe to be here, so we put on our skins and start climbing.
This is an unexpected trip, to an unlikely location. March conditions in the French Alps had been meager, and with nothing but high pressure forecasted for Europe, Tof Henry, Chad Sayers and myself began looking for a last-minute snow escape. Quick research showed a storm front headed across Turkey, and 12 hours later we were at the Geneva airport, boarding our flight to Kayseri.
Located just more than 200 miles southeast of the country’s capital of Ankara, Kayseri sits along both the ancient Silk Road and Persian Royal Road, two of the most important cultural conduits between Europe and East Asia. It’s a city with deep history, a place where empires exchanged ideas, art, religion and war. The surrounding region has an equally extensive legacy, famous for hot air-balloon demonstrations, centuries-old vineyards and churches carved into the sides of wild volcanic formations.
It’s also a city in a country that’s seen turmoil. Turkey has long been a stable presence in the Middle East, but recent political rumblings—including bombings and a mass shooting—have put the nation on edge. A few friends warned us of danger before we left Europe, but the only animosity we’ve experienced so far came from a pissed-off cab driver.
The snow-covered slopes of Mount Erciyes and its accompanying resort are what drew us here. While not an ambitious objective as far as skiing goes, the area itself is a vibrant mix of worlds, as evidenced by the colorful mosque disappearing behind us in the storm.
When we’d landed at the small airport outside of Kayseri the day before, it was almost too dark to see the clouds whipping overhead. Temperatures were well below freezing, not ideal when our rental car failed to arrive.
A small, four-wheel-drive Jeep eventually pulled up, the middle-aged driver shaking his head in frustration and pointing to a piece of paper that looked like a contract. With help from Google Translate, we concluded the man had shown up at 10 a.m. It was currently 10 p.m.
After placating him with a large tip, he somehow maneuvered our mountain of gear into the little Jeep, leaving just enough space for us to squeeze in against a wall of bags. Soon we were heading toward the city—and a heavily armed checkpoint, a sign of Turkey’s current political situation.
In December 2016, a bombing linked to Kurdish militants killed 13 people in Kayseri; two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, tragedy struck Istanbul when an ISIS-linked shooter killed 39 people at a nightclub. Life has continued since, but the government responded by upping military efforts against terrorist groups.
We passed without incident, but it left us feeling uneasy. We weren’t in Chamonix anymore.
It was just after 10 p.m., but the streets were quiet when we arrived at the Radisson Blu, our hotel and the tallest building in the city. Kayseri is largely Muslim, and finding a place that serves alcohol is difficult. As such, there isn’t much of a nightlife, but bright lights still reflected off the glass flanks of the building as we unloaded our gear. Kayseri is one of the “Anatolian Tigers,” the title given to a handful of cities in Turkey that have experienced rapid economic growth over the last few decades. But its history stretches back almost 5,000 years. It’s been occupied by Persian royalty, Roman legions, multiple Islamic dynasties, and served as a bastion for early Christians. Originally called Mazaca, “Kayseri” is derived from the name used by the Romans—Caesarea. It sits a few miles from the ancient city of Kanesh, a key hub for the Assyrians, one of the world’s earliest empires. Not much remains of Kanesh, once the home of kings, aside from some ruins on the shoulder of Erciyes.
The hotel’s rooftop bar, however, is ultramodern and ultra-swanky, and one the few places in the city where ordering alcohol doesn’t raise eyebrows. It also has astounding 360-degree views. We ordered drinks and looked out at a mix of new and ancient: the bulbous mass of the Kadir Has Stadium, the domes and minarets of the Bürüngüz Mosque, marching rows of apartment buildings, clusters of recently built factories, the ancient stone walls of Kayseri Castle.
Beyond it all, rows of foothills marched off toward Mount Erciyes, hidden in the dark. A cool breeze whipped past us, which turned to snow as we left the roof for our beds a few stories below.
The next morning Kayseri was a soft white, a few inches of snow covering its bustling streets. We reloaded our gear into the rental car and started the 30-minute drive towards Erciyes Ski Resort.
On a clear day, the volcano is visible for miles, surrounded by the rolling lava domes that make up its foothills. For the previous 24 hours, the mountain had been wrapped in thick storm clouds, and it remained obscured as we climbed the winding highway.
The accompanying ski area is a favorite tourist destination for Turks across the country, and a popular day trip for local citizens. Most visitors are novices, and many choose sleds over skis, but the resort boasts an impressive amount of infrastructure and terrain: 14 modern lifts, 35 miles of groomed runs, and more than 4,100 feet of vertical.
Which brings us to our 5 a.m. arrival in the parking lot, and the mosque that’s just vanished in the whiteness behind us. We follow the chairlift towers up, the lack of visibility leaving us with no defined goal. This, combined with potentially unstable avalanche conditions, forces us to halt after only a few hundred feet. We still have five days of skiing ahead, so we content ourselves with powder turns back to the car.
We may have come for Erciyes, but there are plenty entertainment options in the mountainous terrain surrounding Kayseri—for the majority of tourists, the ski area isn’t even on the list. That’s topped by Göreme, a small town in the nearby Cappadocia region. While it once was the name of an ancient city, Cappadocia now refers to the broader area, as well as a series of desert rock formations riddled with both natural and handmade caves, many of which were once used as housing. Göreme National Park, a popular attraction, has been a UNESCO Heritage Site since 1985.
The most famous of these caves are in the nearby Taurus Mountains, a system large enough that it’s officially called an “underground city.” Most are well-preserved, filled with colorful mosaics and frescoes from the numerous civilizations that have occupied the area over the millennia. The place was a meeting ground for rival empires, and the caves and tunnels became a place to avoid political unrest. Now they are popular spots for tourists to spend the night.
On our way to Göreme, we stop at a particularly panoramic viewpoint. There are numerous ways to experience the park, including hiking, bicycling or by horseback, but the most exciting method of exploration is by air. Göreme is a hot spot for hot air ballooning, and on some days dozens of colorful orbs float and bob above the stony ridges and valleys.
Our method, however, is via skis, and we prepare our gear for a tour in the bizarre terrain. Across the parking lot is a small market, lined with shops selling roasted nuts, oranges and apples. We fill up on freshly squeezed juice before starting off into the moonscape, hot air balloons floating above our heads. It’s hard not to be entranced by this surreal environment, and easy to imagine the days when the winding caves and canyons housed whole cities.
Later, as we walk through Göreme’s town square, we stop at a building completely covered by carpets—literally, as the entirety of both the outside and interior is obscured by colorful fabric. Kayseri’s carpet industry has been renowned for centuries.
We’re greeted by a middle-aged Turkish man, who forgoes his sales pitch and instead tells us about the town’s history. He talks about how donkeys once lived in some of the caves, dating back to the height of the Silk Road thousands of years ago, to as recently as his grandparents’ days, before the boom of the local tourism industry. His own grandfather would travel around the world buying carpets, telling his grandson how each pattern had a unique story. We listen, fascinated, and after he finishes his tale we leave the building holding our own bundles of fabric—purchased at a special price, “just for us,” of course. It’s the best sales tactic we’ve ever heard.
After tucking our newly acquired goods into the car, we enter a hand-carved cave painted entirely white, which serves as a restaurant offering traditional Turkish fare. The small fireplace gives the stone room a cozy feel, as dish after dish arrives in steaming clay pots. The stewed meat and vegetables leave us in a food-induced stupor, and we stumble to a nearby rooftop bar to drink local red wine and smoke apple-flavored shisha, a type of tobacco inhaled through a hookah. Between sips of wine and inhalations of the verdant smoke, we muse over the carpet salesman’s story while dreaming of tomorrow’s skiing.
The whirring of a preloaded espresso machine wakes us at 4:40 a.m. We’re headed back to Erciyes, looking for sunrise turns before the lifts start spinning. Depending on conditions, a bid for the summit may even be an option. A stiff dose of caffeine gets us to the car, and a half-hour later we’re climbing straight up, under an idle chairlift.
The sun has yet to crest the horizon, and stars still dot the clear, predawn sky. The moon is bright enough to cast shadows, which slowly fade as the light burns from blue to gold to red. Southern winds have blown even more snow onto the slopes, and we bend with the shape of the mountain.
Winds are nonexistent when we stop at 11,500 feet. Beyond the white, bulging foothills, grids of new apartment buildings and businesses sprawl into the distance, a testament to Kayseri’s surging economy. There are still four days left of our trip, and we once again decide to forgo the summit for sunrise powder turns.
An advantage of Erciyes’ volcano-cone shape is there’s good skiing on all aspects, and we’re able to search out the deepest, softest pockets that have remained protected from the night’s winds. After a few upper-mountain laps, we head back to the ski area, where the lifts are moving and the base area is booming. Ski schoolers snowplow on the lower slopes, most in jeans and casual winter jackets. Others simply play in the snow and enjoy lunch at the lodge. A few sledders come over and ask to pose with our skis for a photo.
It’s a welcoming vibe and great skiing, so the next day we repeat our early morning mission and lap the chairlifts in the afternoon. The warnings we’d received from friends now seem ridiculous. Erciyes is like any other resort: full of laughter, smiles and the occasional yell from a frustrated ski-school student.
After three days of skiing, we decide to take a rest day and head to an 800-year-old Turkish hammam, a traditional-style spa located a short walk from the hotel. A standard hammam visit involves sitting in a steam room and washing off with cold water, before getting a massage. We each take our turns on a stone table in the next room, and leave in a state of complete relaxation. Ecriyes may not be a difficult mountain compared to the Alps, but three days of touring at more than 10,000 feet is tiring, no matter where you are.
Two days later we awake to a 4 a.m. alarm, and repeat the same arrival-morning routine in reverse. It’s our final day on Erciyes, and rather than yo-yo-ing in and around the resort we decide to go for the summit.
We’re much more acclimated than during our first attempt, so we bust straight up toward the peak of the crater. This will save time; it will also give us a better idea of stability, as we think the previous two days of sunshine will have settled the snowpack.
My eagerness to capture every view slows us down, and we don’t reach the top until 11 a.m. A ragged Turkish flag marks the true summit and the location of a small iron box containing a guestbook, which we sign. Puffs of clouds slide by below us, and through the gaps we can see for dozens of miles in all directions, past the industry of Kayseri to the east and the tan expanses of Göreme National Park to the west. It’s a view worth celebrating, and we toast to our unusual journey with semi-frozen strawberries and pieces of local chocolate.
Our return flight leaves that evening, and we still have a stack of carpets to package for the trip home. But that’s later. Now we point our tips downward before dropping toward the ski area, enjoying nearly 7,000 feet of Turkish powder to our car far, far below.
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