PALANDÖKEN! Skiing Eastern Turkey

Unsure of what we'd find, last weekend we set off for eastern Turkey for the biggest ski resort in the country. We flew an hour and a half and took a 15 minute taxi up to the resort. Again, it was one of those all-inclusive deals, but this time, much cheaper for waaaaayyy better skiing! We didn't find any powder. In fact, they need some serious snow out there. But there was enough for us to have a total blast and not get bored on the pistes.

The place has an ancient gondola, 3 high-speed quads, and several dinky lifts and t-bars. The runs were plenty steep and long and there were several slalom courses set up all over the mountain--probably the only resort steep enough to have such courses. From the top of the mountain, we could get a couple thousand feet of decent in, and NOT on cat tracks. We were very pleased.

We also made quite an impression with the tele skis. People stared and the brave ones told us our skis were broken. Thank you for letting us know.

The bare landscape was still a bit shocking, even though I feel like I've been around the Middle East enough now to expect it. We felt like we were skiing on the moon. There were no trees anywhere. But of course, that meant plenty of wide bowls for carving huge turns.

As soon as we got back, we tried to book a second trip, but all the flights are full this month. We may have to wait till next year to go again, but we'll be sure to get out there at least once a month next winter!

Tomorrow we're off to yet another new ski area, Dorukaya. We are slowly reaching Tim's goal to ski every resort in Turkey by the time we leave--short winter be-damned!