With high avalanche danger and low visibility, the crew opted for mellow powder laps upon arrival in Kartalkaya. Victor Daviet, Sparrow Knox and Niels Schack letting it flow. KARTALKAYA Pelin had suggested we go north to a small resort called as Kartalkaya, so we left Istanbul and its endless sprawl of skyscrapers and drove east along the southern coast of the Black Sea, deep into the Turkish coun-tryside. Our rented van struggled to climb the steep and increasingly snowy road into the mountains, despite a fresh set of winter tires. And in Kartalkaya, we found powder, along with a surprise from Pelin: four hotel rooms and buffet tickets in a swanky, five-star hotel for the week. Kartalkaya is nestled high in the Köroğlu mountains in the prov-ince of Bolu. It’s quiet during the week, but on weekends it sees an influx of adventure seekers from Istanbul and the nearby capital city of Ankara. Our accommodation at the Golden Key Hotel boasted a huge sectional couch around two fireplaces, a library that stretched from floor to ceiling, a buffet that was good enough to satiate Perly’s discerning French tastes and a welcoming staff. Most of the guests were laid-back older skiers sporting flashy new gear, families on vacation and younger folks who were there to learn to snowboard. Our first day in Kartalkaya a whiteout emptied the slopes and we had the whole mountain to ourselves. The winds picked up near noon and they closed all but one of the lifts, so we found respite in the thick pine trees and deep powder of the adjacent backcountry. Bootpacking through waist-deep snow, Victor led the charge into a pocket of steep terrain with tightly packed trees and cliffs. We would spend the rest of the week hiking this zone beyond the lifts under stormy skies. As we debated our next destination on our final night, we were ap-proached by a man in his mid-30s with a goatee and easygoing smile. We’d seen him around for the past week, but hadn’t really spoken to him. As they shared cigarettes and shots of whiskey, Alex explained why we were here and that we had been debating following the coast to the neighboring country of Georgia. As soon as Alex mentioned head-ing to the northeastern region of Turkey, the man’s eyes widened and in broken English he said, “eastern Turkey no good.” He strongly ad-vised us not to go any farther east unless we wanted to meet gun-toting Turkish cowboys who surely wouldn’t understand our street style of snowboarding. Putting our trust in his local knowledge, we decided to head south to the city of Kayseri for our final week of the trip, about an hour away from the tourist hotspot of Cappadocia. TURKEY 065
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 14.1: Page 65
