The last steps to the top. Chad Sayers is greeted by a wind-beaten Turkish flag as he reaches Erciyes’s 12,851-foot summit. After a lunch of Turkish chocolate and slightly frozen strawberries, it was time to enjoy a few thousand vertical feet of powder. 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. T wo 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 at-tempt, 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 contain-ing 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. 080 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume Eleven, Issue Four: Page 80
