BORN TO A TURKISH father and American mother, I grew up in Bristol, NY, as the youngest of five children. Our large family was my dad’s way of building his own com-munity to supplement the relatives that had moved back to Türkiye through the decades. My father helped develop the Turkish community of Rochester, NY, a community cen-tered around the mosque. Living an hour to the south, trips were difficult, but my parents brought us into the Turkish community once a week. Like many other first-generation families, the native language didn’t quite pass down, and as we got older, it made it harder to feel like an insider at gatherings. I still traveled to Türkiye every few years, strengthening bonds with our relatives and, on our father’s hopes, connecting with Turkish culture. As the years passed, my brother, Ahmet, and I gravi-tated toward a different love: skiing. Western New York had emerged as a freeskier hotspot in the early 2000s, attract-ing enthusiasts with local terrain park events and iconic backyard setups. We met other skiers such as Will Wesson, Erik Olson, Ross Imburgia and Andy Parry, and started our own ski video production company, I Hate New York. By 2008, I took it further, relocating to Utah to pursue my own ski aspirations. Yet during this journey, I realized that I was surrounded by skiers already part of their own self-fulfilling legacy. Films portrayed skiers traveling to far-off places, with no connec-tion to the land. Media felt like it was passed down between a narrow subset of athletes, the stories of native skiers notably missing. My quest to ski in Türkiye became personal. I knew my family in Istanbul had dabbled in the sport, but it felt like there wasn’t a relatable athlete on a bigger stage to show how possible it really was. Mountaineers like Nimsdai showcased their heritage’s lands, inspiring the Nepalese and breaking stereotypes—maybe the same could happen in Türkiye, I thought. I’d seen the mountains, I’d heard about the skiing, but maybe seeing it all in person—and documenting it for generations to come—could provide some spark. BLESSED BY ABUNDANT SNOWFALL off the Black Sea, Ovit Mountain of the Kaçkar Range in Northeast Türkiye has a history deeper than its snowpack. Ovit Pass once formed a crux along the Silk Road, facilitating trade between the Far East and the Western world. In 1836, Sultan Mahmud II entrusted the Ekşi family with protecting the Ovit region and ensuring the safety of weary travelers. As early as the 1880s, the Ottomans had talked of a tunnel to mitigate the challenges of this trading route (such a structure wasn’t opened until over a century later) and control of the area was ceded to the Turkish Republic in the 1960s. However, Ruşen Ekşi, a descendant of the original Ekşi family, reclaimed the land in 2014. His vision? To transform Ovit Mountain into a winter sports destination. Ruşen, with the help of entrepreneur and snow-mobile enthusiast Çaka Bademli, officially opened Ovit Mountain in 2021, a lodge and ski area catering specifically to backcountry skiers and snowmobilers. 056 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 4: Page 56
