TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT Low hanging clouds persisted our first few days at Kartalkaya, but it didn’t stop folks from showing up in droves from the capital. Despite low visibility at Kartalkaya, Giray got back to his urban roots just behind the Kaya Palazzo Lounge. Giray’s passion for skiing and sharing the sport he loves was the driver of this trip. Giray’s cousin Engin and his family joined us when we visited the resort of Kartalkaya. Here, Giray works with Engin’s wife, Nagihan, on technique. Nagihan’s face says it all as she slides on skis for her first time at Kartalkaya Resort. It was hard to see that community, or anything really, as we ascended higher up the pass. A heavy fog enveloped our van and all we could see was bare ground. My hopes of scoring deep sea effect seemed to have evaporated before we touched down, and as we passed into the darkness of Ovit Tunnel, doubt crept in. Suddenly, however, we emerged to a world transformed. Blue skies and new snow glistened on untouched mountain peaks. Abruptly, the van made a U-turn on the highway and pulled over next to a team of snowmobile drivers—our chauffeurs into the alpine. It wasn’t a luxury ride— almost six miles on overworked machines in the milky white of the basin. We wound through abandoned villages until we met two giant English sheep dogs and a friendly face. Yiğit, a school friend of Ruşen, was also Ovit’s operation manager and our point of contact. Hustling us inside, he quickly got down to business. “Espresso martini?” he asked as a well-dressed bartender carried an entire fleet of drinks behind him. Did we take a wrong turn? Yiğit spoke with a British accent, having studied software engineering in the U.K. before taking over at the upstart ski destination. Far from my dark fantasies of staying in a decrepit barn, this was absolute luxury. As a storm howled outside, we ate seared shrimp, heaping salads and fresh-baked olive bread. Finally connecting our internet searches to this comfortable reality, we couldn’t believe our luck. The following morning, we were greeted by a blanket of fresh snow. Metin, Ovit’s restaurant manager, handed me a Turkish coffee. “This could be home,” I thought. Histori-cally speaking, it once was. My grandfather Mustafa Dadali had arrived to Türkiye after escaping the Russia-led Crimean Tatar genocide. After the birth of my aunt in Istanbul, Mustafa and my grand-mother Lutfia welcomed my father and uncle into the world. Eventually, the Dadalis immigrated to New York City in the 1980s, but many would return to their homeland in the fol-lowing decades. My father stayed behind, finding a nice parcel of land in Western New York and starting a family. While I have slowly learned my family’s history over the years, the natural surroundings of this place suddenly brought my story full circle. Peering out the lodge windows, I was struck by peaks riddled with big rock faces and couloirs, with natural quarter pipes and rollers carved out from the wind. Ercan stood mesmerized. “What’s the plan?” he asked eagerly. After a full breakfast spread of fresh cut fruits, olive bread, local honey and cheese from the valley, we were shuttled onto snowmobiles by a giant of a man called “Snowman,” heading up, and then up some more. Our first run in Türkiye dropped into silky turns on a smooth surface of wind buffed snow. It’s the kind of dream intro that makes anything feel possible. Ercan and I were eager to tour to bigger terrain, but it wasn’t long before a whoomph in the snowpack dashed those plans. From the skin track, we both looked at each other. The wind loading from yesterday’s storm had done more damage than we thought, leaving most of the eye-catching terrain off limits. We settled for a flowy series of rollers down a channel that was just under 30 degrees. I dropped first. The snow was pure cream, uninterrupted. The rollers and ravine guided every turn like a banked slalom run. Ercan dropped next. I could hear his hoots break through the nervous tension from earlier. We were alive. Throughout our eight days at Ovit, we grew more ac-customed to the landscape and the ever-changing weather. Moist air off the Black Sea quickly turned bluebird morn-ings to clouds and snow showers, which often persisted throughout the day. We found ourselves digging pits and setting up shots in storms, hoping for a brief window of light. Each day I felt more at home. These mountains were new, but not foreign. Türkiye 061
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 4: Page 61
