The Turkey Trot

The mountains don't always allow us to trespass with frivolity. The Kaçkar Range in Eastern Turkey reminds us of this eternal truth. Rising above the Black Sea, the mountains host small villages and impressive peaks, luring in the occasional international group of backcountry skiers. With an intermountain climate, the snowpack is often fragile. A ski adventure to Turkey can't be solely about the skiing. It must celebrate the place and the people who thrive there. That is just what we did, and Turkey welcomed us on the journey. Olgunlar is a small village decorated with about twenty structures. One of them is the Kaçkar Pension, a mountain hostel run by a man named Ismail and his family.

The others, small homes decorated with Turkish flags and shades drawn. We see faces curiously peering from the windows of these abodes, wondering whom the new tourists are skinning through their village. Olgunlar seems to be guarded by two large German Shepherd-looking dogs, wandering the tiny enclave, sniffing out the foreigners. Andy, a software engineer living in Seattle and working for Facebook, is the first person in our group to come across one of the dogs. He has his biggest scare of the trip, only to find out that the beastly Alpha-male of a dog is as gentle as a kitten. So often, things aren't what they seem. The mountains surrounding the small village are big and beautiful, the kind you search the world to ski.

From far away, atop mountain ridges deep in the valley we can hear the prayers sung from the speakers of the local mosque. It's a reminder that we are in a foreign land with unfamiliar mountains, and no amount of ego or bravery insulates you from their danger. On our first day skinning, we remotely trigger a deep slab avalanche. In the days to come we tip toe around enjoying the mountains, but mostly looking, causing the snow to careen down in slabs, both skiing and walking. The culture has opened its door to us, but the thing we are most familiar with, the mountains, are making us trespass with trepidation. Secluded in our little Olgunlar hovel, Turkey is not what it once seemed.

The sons of Ismail are young, educated, and interested in the people who come to visit their hometown, including American female skiers. They pray when it is customary (including the pre-dawn fajr prayer before preparing breakfast for the guests), teach me about Ramadan, a few necessary Turkish words, and how to dance the Kolbasti, but they also respect with interest and curiosity the customs of their verbose and excited American guests. The exchange between us and them (if really any kind of divide actually exists) solidifies the trip. Discovering these people and learning about their life, which is so drastically different than my powder-hunting path, is a gift. No amount of skiing can trump this exchange.

I literally let my hair down, which was hidden under a scarf or hat during our travel throughout Turkey. The people of Olgunlar allow me to be me, and I respectfully indulge in them being them. Our days are spent walking valleys and skiing ridges. Some days we just venture up to the small hillside behind our hostel, taking a few laps on what we've coined the local ski hill. At the top of the pitch we dedicate a large, flat spot as the picnic zone, where over the days we eat figs, have handstand exposes, wrestling matches, and one ridiculously funny meltdown between me and Kevin from Pittsburg, when we realize the conditions aren't going to allow us to ski everything anything we want.

We both lose it in the way that our laughter about the small things comes with tears that stain our cheeks with the shame of traveling across the world to shred skin tracks. Sanity slips away as we realize we can't plan big ski objectives and will instead need to feel satisfied with skinning through the valleys and then skiing back down our flat, sun-crusted walkways. At night, I learn how to dance the Kolbasti with a group of art students preparing for an upcoming festival in Olgunlar. During the day while we tour the mountains, they sculpt bears, bulls, and other creatures out of the snow and watch Ismail's sons try to ski with gear they've collected from the 80's. One night they ask to learn some American dance moves.

I teach them how to do the sprinkler and the shopping cart to Rick James' "Super Freak" mostly because I don't know any country and don't know how to line dance. I know they were expecting something that involved a cowboy hat. Still, I think my moves made them smile. We set off a final avalanche on our last day skiing from Olgunlar. It is large enough and close enough to one of the folks in our group, that I start welcoming my upcoming week in Istanbul. We had floated on through the mountains for many days, and it had come to the point where it was obvious they were asking us to stop. Time to move on. I despise forcing ski objectives in a range and snowpack that doesn't want to be skied. Things can change. Maybe next year. The Kaçkars might not make backcountry skiing easy, but all we can hope is that they will always welcome us back.