Erzurum - Calls To Ski Five Times A Day: December 21st, 2023 - January 11th, 2024
We left Dr. Aslan's nice hotel and flew to Erzurum Türkiye. We were unsure about the place we had booked here as it had zero reviews and two different addresses on Booking.com. We messaged to ask what to tell the taxi driver and she called and talked to the driver to get us where we needed to go. This place was BIG. It had an extra bedroom and a living room. We moved our stuff in and quickly had to get to the grocery store as this place was lacking in some basics like toilet paper - which I can forgive in a culture that doesn't use it...but there also wasn't any hand soap...We were looking at staying at this place for about 3 weeks so it wasn't a huge deal to pick up some stuff as we probably would have run out during the stay anyway. The place needed a handyman though and there were a lot of small things that were NOT great for a long stay. Oh well, live and learn. It was above a grocery store and that was awesome! After so many weeks of having limited access to groceries it was so convenient to just run down and grab milk halfway through making pancakes. Grocery store within 5 minutes is definitely high on my priority list for when we settle down again.
The city of Erzurum is in the eastern part of Türkiye. We didn't meet many people who could speak another language other than Turkish, which we expected for most of Türkiye, but having been in the western touristy part of Türkiye we had been getting by with a lot of English. Our duolingo Turkish was barely enough at this point, but we got by with a lot of help from Google Translate. Erzurum is a very Muslim city. They were Muslim before many other parts of Türkiye were and they have some very old mosques in the city. We were sick for the first few days after we arrived and the call to prayer would remind us how long we had hit snooze for and tell us to get our lazy butts out of bed...where our sick selves would then enjoy the nice couches in the living room until the next call to prayer.
On our rest days in Erzurum we checked out their castle, two madrasas turned museums, and their archaeological museum.
The castle was small and mostly a pile of rubble reinforced with some newer stones. It had been attacked many times as this area of the world was overrun by one group or another. We did get to climb the clock tower and got an excellent view of the city from there.
We also checked out the Çifte Minaret and the Yakutiye Madrasa. The Çifte Minarets are twin minarets that have had to be restored but are beautiful with mosaic and turquoise tiles on the outside. They guard the entrance to a madrasa (theological school for Islam) that has been turned into a museum to house many illuminated Qurans. The stone work on the inside is carved into intricate designs and surrounds a courtyard.
Our first stop by the Yakutiye Madrasa we made the mistake of showing up on a Monday when museums are often closed. OOPS, so we returned later and got to see the inside of this one which also had intricate stone work. It did not have a courtyard and most of its exhibits were on the clothing of the time period, which was neat to see. There was a vending machine selling museum souvenirs and it had a really cute journal in it and I needed a new one so Ben and I spent far too long trying to get this vending machine to take our money and give us the book. The poor guy running the place obligingly swapped bills with us until finally (after losing about 30 lira to the machine and getting like 50 lira back in coins) we managed to get the journal! It felt like winning the jackpot and one of those claw machine games at the same time.
The archaeology museum in Erzurum is impressive. It is in a brand new building and has great exhibits. Again we saw plenty of pottery and coins. We also saw these cool statues called Babas that are apparently all over this part of the world. They also had an exhibit on more modern Turkish history detailing Ataturk and his congresses, one of which he held in Erzurum. As an American who is used to reading about WW1 from one perspective it was fascinating to see how this time period is recorded here. A lot of frustration at the carving up of the world and a lot of pride in being able to make/hold onto their own country despite the forces against them. Still they felt compelled to reject a lot of their own Ottoman culture and embrace European styles and conventions in order to "modernise". This was especially interesting in Erzurum where Republicanism forced a lot of the traditional ways of living to end.
But mainly we were in Erzurum to ski and ice climb. Ever since we had met our friends in Istanbul we had been lugging around ice climbing equipment and ski gear, so we were excited to finally put it to good use. Just outside of town there is the Ejder Ski resort (which confusingly is actually made up of two smaller resorts, Palandöken and Konaklı). Palandöken is unique in that it also has a human made ice wall where you can ice climb! So we knew we would be able to do both sports here. We were hoping to get on some real water ice but you never know what conditions will be like (especially in Türkiye). Konaklı is a smaller ski resort a little further outside of town.
Skiing at Palandöken was a lesson in early season skiing, and rental gear fails. Our first two days skiing there we rented some good skis from an alpine sports shop in town. They had a lot of skis for sale and even some ice climbing equipment, and the owners were really friendly, so this seemed like a good place. These were solid skis that allowed us to ski to our ability level. Granted the first day on them was our first day skiing in the season so we weren't really skiing to our ability level. Also the conditions were not great with low snow cover and not a lot of terrain open. The second day skiing the weather was better and more of the mountain was open so we got to get into a little bit of off piste skiing fun. I was holding back still as I wasn't sure how my back would react to skiing, but it did pretty well. The next time we went skiing at Palandöken we rented from the ski resort and we paid more for the "professional" ski rental. These were TERRIBLE. I feel bad for anyone learning on these. Ben and I realized we have gotten good enough that we can ski well on good equipment but we are not so good yet that we can ski well no matter the equipment. These had dull edges, no wax, and felt like planks of wood with no soul to them. It was a very frustrating day of skiing as normally we can have fun on black runs, but with these it was a hard chore to make it down them.
Our next day skiing we went to Konaklı ski resort. This resort is smaller (technically it merged with Palandöken and they have plans to connect them via chair lifts but that is years in the future) but it is also cheaper. We went back to the good shop in town to get decent skis to rent and took a taxi out there. The driver made sure to give us his number so we could call him to get back home, which we were very grateful for! At Palandöken there had been a taxi stand at the hill and a bus, but at Konaklı you need a taxi number already. Also he was a great driver and we stumbled through some Turkish/English conversations with him.
I wasn't sure about Konaklı as the map looks so small I worried we would get bored. But there is a lot of off-piste potential there and few people go off- piste here so we had it practically to ourselves. There was mellow untouched powder easily accessible at the end of the day! We had a blast. We ended up skiing a few laps with this Turkish guy on SUPER short skis. I joked that the old man was going to pull tricks and flips off some rocks, but he laughed and said no after a back surgery and double knee replacement he started skiing super short skis as it makes his back feel better. *noted for future me
Also we had been noticing that everyone at these resorts had super short skis. We kept having to argue for longer skis when renting. I ski a 171cm at home and they wanted to give me 150s! Often the shop wouldn't even have anything beyond a 163. I don't know what tall people do here. I think it is a difference in ski style between Türkiye and the US, where in the US most people assume you will touch ungroomed snow, but in Türkiye they seemed to not open after snow fall to make sure the pistes were groomed, so you don't need long skis, but I feel much more stable on skis closer to my height.
Our last ski day we went to Palandöken again. We tried to get the good skis at the shop, but there was a tour bus load of people leaving the shop as we arrived and they had cleared them out. *sigh. We go up to Palandöken and we try a different rental shop on the hill, argue again for longer skis and the rental guys laughed at how light our ski boots are. These skis let us ride closer to our ability level than the soulless ones from the other shop. It still wasn't effortless joy down the hills, but it was closer. There hadn't been much snow during our time in Erzurum so there were spots where we were skiing on literal ice. We are realizing now just how spoiled we were in Bozeman.
When not skiing at the resort we would try to go ice climbing. Our first day going up to the ski hill we took our ice climbing stuff, because the lifts were closed due to bad wind. But we figured we could climb. We were told it wasn't open for the season yet. One man told us it would open in a week, the next said in a month, and another said in a day. So...that wasn't the most comforting start to our Erzurum trip.
The second time we attempted to ice climb, we were again told it wasn't open, but we had been laying at home kind of sick and not getting a lot of exercise so we decided to walk up to the ice climb anyway just to get some exercise. On our walk up two other people informed us the ice was closed and to not bother with the walk. We get up there and the ice certainly looks climbable, but we get it they may have some rule or other about the thickness before they can open. We stared forlornly at the ice for a while and then started walking back down hill, where we ran into a group of Turkish climbers! They were also hoping to climb that day and had been told it WAS open. So we walked back uphill with them and they called someone, if we understood correctly it was a guy at the alpine shop where we'd rented our first skis because they also ran the ice wall? But lucky for us they told our new friend Ismet that she could just turn off the water at the top and climb! Yay!
We spent the day doing some easy leads and Ben did one harder lead and we top roped a harder section. We chatted with the Turkish climbers Ismet and Sumru and we swapped phone numbers and ended up going to dinner with them and some more of their friends that evening at a traditional Erzurum house restaurant. Super great first day ice climbing.
The next time we climbed we were asked to sign some documents, not sure what they said but we assumed they were legal liability things. We asked if we needed to pay, and she said no and then later had to come back and say actually, yes it does cost money. So we finally got to pay for this super convenient ice wall. Towards the end Ismet and Sumru arrived with some friends and they got a few pitches in on ice.
Our third time climbing we did not run into any other climbers. This time, there was someone in the portable that we went and gave money too and then they were like "Oh yeah you need to sign paperwork!" As we were the only climbers this time, we got a lot of skiers who stopped and talked to us. Some were very polite and asked if it was ok to take pictures of us, which I appreciated. Some posed in front of the ice wall, but no one went and rented the equipment to climb. While we were climbing the people running the wall told us to come in for some tea and we said we would love too after a few more routes! They seemed confused that we hadn't come in yet. There were 10 people in the portable and not a single one of them had climbed that day. Which blew my mind, I think this is Hong-Yen's kind of ice climbing place where the focus is on being warm and drinking tea. We hung out for a minute and showed them pictures of the ice in Uzundere and then we headed down the hill to catch the bus.
Our final day of climbing was very cold. There was one guy in the hut, and he wouldn't let us climb until we came in and had tea. Then he went and shut off the water for us. It was nice chatting with him before and after our climbs. Again, we were the only people climbing that day so we had a lot of people stop and ask us questions or comment on how cool it is to climb ice, but no one rented. A couple of guys even asked to pose with our ice tools for pictures. I will never understand social media. But at Palandöken there were SO many people taking pictures as if they were skiing or as if they were climbing but they weren't, it was weird to me.
We did attempt to find real water ice to climb. To do this we had to rent a car (we were pros at this now having rented a car in Cappadocia) and drive to the much smaller town of Uzundere where we spent the night in a pansiyon that was...underwhelming. It was a tiny kinda dirty room with two beds, a T.V. from the 90s, and a toilet with a shower over it contained in a glass cube so small that your knees touched the door when you were sitting on the toilet. The shower over the western style toilet was hilarious to me. Nowhere to stand if taking a shower...if it was an eastern style toilet it would have been fine...but. Oh well, we wouldn't be here long and it was enough. Also the did have a nice powerful heat lamp to keep the room warm... but the spooky bright-red inferno glow didn't help us sleep.
We drove from Uzundere to Uzunkavak, a very small rural village, where we promptly parked too soon, followed the wrong trail to a dead end and had to head back to the car, drive a little further, park the car again and as we started walking in the wrong direction a nice man told us to go the other way. Turkish people are REALLY nice. We were very hopeful about the ice as we passed by little curtains of frozen ice. We got started on the correct trail, but promptly left the trail too early and spent a lot of time scrambling in talus fields hidden by a thin layer of snow. Ben had to go first as I couldn't afford to drop into holes with a backpack on and my back still being weird. He eventually lost his patience with the terrain and cursed a lot about his feet slipping in holes and on unstable rocks hidden by the snow. We finally got to the waterfall and it was SKETCHY. There was still a lot of water flowing. The edges were frozen, but it looked thin and like it wouldn't take a screw. There were also constant chunks falling off of it. So there was nowhere safe to belay from. Hopes dashed. It was SOO close to being in. The people at the shop in Erzurum were right, it just hadn't been cold enough yet. Thankfully, we didn't have to return the way we came as there was a trail to follow. We just had to quickly pass under the ice fall zone to cross the river to the side with the trail. My foot dropped through some snow and into the river so I got to walk back with a soggy foot, but the day wasn't too cold so it was ok (hence why we couldn't CLIMB *sigh).
On our drive back to our place we stopped and checked out some other ice smears we had seen from the road. None of them turned out to be anything we could climb safely. So finally we headed back feeling a little defeated.
The next day we drove to Cevizli, another village, just to get eyes on the ice. We doubted they would be in and they weren't. Everything was so close to being climbable it felt cruel. It would have been kinder for it to have been not even close to climbable but all of it I think you could free solo. But we are cowards and want to be able to put something in to catch us if we fall...also it is nice to be able to get down. We took pictures so we could share it with the guys at the shop in Erzurum, and tell them they were right.
Since we couldn't climb anything we decided to stop at the tourist spot to see the biggest waterfall in Türkiye. The Tortum waterfall was made after an earthquake dammed the river and was impressively both tall and very wide. After that, we drove back to Erzurum and were surprised at how nice it was to return to a place with most of our stuff in it. The shabby place seemed amazing after our place in Uzundere. So that trip was disappointing, but we did see some rural mountain villages and had a beautiful hike.
Our time in Erzurum has led us to believe that Türkiye is the true king of tea culture. They take it seriously. Anywhere we did business we were offered tea. Ski rentals meant we got tea, ice climbing meant we got tea, go to a chaos shop asking for allen wrenches - the man gives it to us for free AND insists we had some tea with him. There are tea shops everywhere. Granted we never went in one as I never once saw a woman in there, but they were ALWAYS packed with men. I asked one of the guys we met while ice climbing about it and he said it is just where men hang out when they are not at work or home. He said it is sad as the genders don't mix often in the East of Türkiye. He moved to this area from Ankara and he found it really hard when he first moved as he felt a lot of men hid from their wives in the tea houses. (I joked that at least they don't come home drunk afterwards, just highly caffeinated).
We also tried Erzurum's Cağ kKebab. Every area has its own special kebab and Erzurum's "stick" was that their chunk of meat was roasted horizontally NOT vertically and this is the best way of course. We went to a restaurant who had no menu and only served this. It was great. We wandered in. We stumbled through some Turkish...not sure what we ordered, and a bunch of small dishes came out along with essentially a really big really floppy tortilla and then periodically skewers of meat would come around and you would take more if you were hungry. I may have said yes one too many times but the meat was REALLY good. Probably the best meat on this trip.
We have also been traveling long enough by now that Ben was hankering for some Arby's. So we stopped by the food court at the mall the night we returned the rental car and Ben ordered Arby's after I stumbled through a confusing conversation to order some Popeye's. The Arby's was solid. Bun, meat all the same they just serve it with lettuce, tomato and pickles. Though their curly fries are NOT the default fry. You have to order that in addition to your meal. The Popeye's...the meat and breading is the same it is just tiny. The dude did try to warn me telling me I wanted 30 pieces. Also I had to know what Türkiye thought a biscuit was so I ordered it and it was just bread. Not even close to a biscuit. We were given "ranch" which turned out to be Mayonnaise. Overall a very amusing experience.
Erzurum was a solid place to spend 3 weeks. With the exception of ice climbing we were able to do what we had planned, had a really great powder day skiing and at least there was a man made ice wall to let us warm up our skills. We were ready to move on though and were hopeful that our next stop would be deeper into Winter as the early season nature of the skiing and ice climbing was starting to give us a certain kind of seasonal-affective disorder.
I was at brunch the other day with my homies and be came to the conclusion that alpinism and alpine related pursuits should be age regulated. Like you gotta show ID and be over the age of 25 to access the ice screws behind the locked glass 🤔
ReplyDeleteI mean, that stuff does get you high....
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