In search of your next heli-adventure? Look to Turkey’s Pontic Alps, where eastern exotica meet Swiss professionalism.
It was nearing the end of our March ski week at Turkey HeliSki-60 miles from the Georgian border and not far from where the Russian military was scrambling to find pieces of the U.S. reaper drone brought down in the Black Sea a few days earlier—when rumors began to circulate. Vacuum-packed contraband had arrived in a guest’s bag. Amid the din of the muezzin’s evening call to prayer from a nearby minaret, hushed talk of more than five kilos being smuggled into the hotel was the topic of the moment. We knew something was up when whiffs from the kitchen at our HQ, Hafimoilu Hotel, began to reach our noses. All week, the dinner buffet had been tantalizing us far beyond any pedestrian expectations of doner kebabs and baklava. Instead, our plates were teased with delicious local specialties like Akcaabat meatballs, eggplant saksuka, gozleme pastries, Hamsili (anchovy) pilav and many more memorable dishes. Tonight’s apres-ski aroma, however, wasn’t so much unique as out of place. Confirmation finally arrived when Tobias and Lorenz, our Swiss pilots, announced to the small crowd excitedly: “We’ve had a secret delivery. Tonight is raclette night!” In addition to pilots, Switzerland-based Turkey HeliSki has for the last 10 winters been bringing its mountain guides, office personnel and raclette-cheese melters to the impressive Kackar Massif in the Pontic Alps not far from the Georgian border. Although the aircraft and mechanics come from Austria, their continued partnership with Air Zermatt has given them invaluable experience in mountain flying as well as in servicing and maintenance in foreign countries. A few hundred powder-pilgrims come each winter from across Europe and, increasingly, from North America. The snow, lots and lots and lots of it, comes from the Black Sea to the north.
With a tenure of more than 2,000 square miles (that’s well more than a million acres) Turkey heliskiers share their domain with no one else. The highest peaks reach almost 13,000 feet and are home to more than 400 named runs with typical skiable verticals of 1,800-3,600 feet. Two A-Star helicopters lift off each morning a few yards from the breakfast table, one reserved for a private group of four skiers and mountain guide, and another shared by up to 16 guests. My wife Ray and I shared ski days and dinners with our new Bulgarian friends Stoyan and Hristo whose English was better than most North Americans’, and their conversation and humor, memorable. Having heliskied in Alaska and British Columbia multiple times, they were finally trying Turkey. Like many of the typical dads and ski buddies you’d find in a helicopter or snowcat in the U.S. or Canada, discerning businessman Hristo had an INSEAD MBA while lawyer Stoyan’s Instagram videos from other feather-in-a-cap ski destinations around the world were intermingled with shots of him bouncing on trampolines with his kids. During our week, the four of us shared the helicopter with two other groups of four from France and Switzerland. In one of many small-world moments, it turned out lovely Laura, our smiley and patient mountain guide, was born and raised under the shadow of the Eiger in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Less than two weeks earlier, I had been ski touring in her backyard and when I showed her some photos she quickly blurted out “Oh! You were skiing with Sigi, she’s one of my best friends!” Sigi was equally surprised when Laura and I texted her a few selfies from our lunch stop in a collection of farmer’s alpine chalets and hay-drying huts otherwise used only in the summer. Turkey, yes. But somehow still very Swiss. With precisely the right kind of mountain ranges, volcanoes and climate for winter sports, Turkey has a long wintery history of alpine skiing and today has more than 40 ski areas and resorts in different mountain regions. Five years earlier, we’d skied the massive inactive volcano Erciyes near fabled tourist mecca Cappadocia in the south and were so impressed by its newly built infrastructure, high-speed lifts, luxe accomms and ski touring, we’d always wanted to return.
As we all know, a skier’s ultimate high-speed lift is a helicopter so on this trip we spent most of our days yo-yoing fast laps above the tree line. Regular snowfall here comes with storms that typically start off more maritime moist before finishing dry and continental: a great combo for stability. Like most heliski hotspots, the cake is topped frequently by the Black Sea’s moisture and this consistency is one of the many draws to Turkey Heliski.
Mountain guide and Turkey Heliski’s senior partner Thierry Gasser pointed out one of many peculiarities of the Kaçkar Mountains that make them “cut for heliskiing.” Said Gasser, “It’s possible to ski everywhere in each valley with varied terrain, and flight times between any two runs or between the lodge and the terrain is very quick.”
Like all great heli-skiing operations, most run names have a story. “Just after Corfu” for instance received its fitting name when once, during the transfer of helis from Europe to Turkey, the flight crew and aircraft were forced to spend two days stuck on the Greek island of Corfu waiting out a massive storm. The previously unnamed slope where the first tracks were waist-deep was quickly anointed in honor of the Ionian layover.
A female theme runs throughout one valley with “Pretty Woman,” “Easy Woman,” and so on. The original was inspired
by one lucky client on a first descent who was so impressed by the silence named it “No Woman, No Cry.”
“Cosmic Debris” seemed appropriate for the enormous rock blocks mid-slope that we skied around, and “Face à la Mer” – facing the sea – for its spectacular views of the Black Sea and the Caucasus’ 4,000 and 5,000 meter peaks in the distance.
Of course, not every skier can time his or her visit perfectly. Many trips over the decades I’ve heard the apologetic “It’s not normally like this!” weather speech. Our late March visit began with spring corn and sunshine before an unusually early warm front entered the scene dramatically, complete with Saharan sand that painted the western faces orange and spoilt our dreams of bottomless Australian powder.
But almost a week later the photos and messages began arriving in my inbox. While we had since moved across the country to scramble about the ruins of Ephesus, visiting the Virgin Mary’s house near Izmir and getting scrubbed down in a 500-year-old hammam on our Turkey Adventure Part II, the Black Sea gods had already wiped last week’s slate clean with 70 centimeters begging to be carved up by the lucky few. The tiny mountain village of Ayder was again the lift off to a great eastern powder playground.
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