Türkiye is not the first country most people think of for skiing, but its interior is high and its winters are long, and ski centres are spread across the country from the Marmara to the eastern mountains. The seven below are all on this site with their own guides; what follows pulls together the practical side — height, season, lifts and how to get there.
Erciyes, above Kayseri
Mount Erciyes rises to 3,917 metres south of Kayseri and is the highest mountain in central Anatolia. The ski centre on its flanks is one of Türkiye's more significant winter sports areas, and the mountain is also a destination for mountaineering and ice climbing; in summer the same slopes are walked. Minibuses towards Develi from central Kayseri serve the ski centre at Hisarcik, which makes Erciyes one of the easier mountains to reach without a car — and it pairs naturally with Cappadocia, whose rock was laid down by the volcano's eruptions.
Uludağ, above Bursa
Uludağ National Park covers 13,024 hectares south and south-east of Bursa and can be reached by road and by cable car. The hotels zone sits at 1,900 metres, and the park's facilities are concentrated in the part outside its absolute protection zone; a great many paths on the northern and southern slopes connect the valleys and hills within the park.
Ilgaz, between Kastamonu and Çankırı
Ilgaz Dağı National Park lies between 1,600 and 2,070 metres and is one of Türkiye's main winter tourism centres: through December, January, February and March the accommodation inside the park runs close to full, busiest at holidays and weekends. There is no minibus or shared-taxi line from Kastamonu or Çankırı, so a car is the practical way in; the park is about 40 kilometres from Kastamonu and 200 from Ankara.
Four smaller centres
Elmadağ, near Ankara, is a small centre between 1,500 and 1,850 metres with tree-free pistes and a tow 548 metres long; its season runs from January to March, with snow generally thirty to sixty centimetres deep, and it is reached by municipal bus. Yedikuyular, near Kahramanmaraş in the Dulkadiroğlu district, has facilities between 1,833 and 2,044 metres, and metropolitan municipality buses run to it from the city.
Further east, Hesarek ski centre stands thirty-four kilometres from the city of Bingöl, with five pistes — the longest 1,600 metres — a chairlift and a season of about four to five months; a hotel at the facilities has thirty-five rooms. In the north-east, Atabarı is 18 kilometres from the centre of Artvin, with a chairlift and a gondola lift; places to stay are at the Kafkasör tourism centre, ten kilometres away.
Before you go
Snow and road conditions decide everything on these mountains. At Yedikuyular the road is kept open through the year, but when snowfall affects traffic, drivers without chains are turned back by the gendarmerie — carry chains on any of these routes in midwinter. Each centre's own page on this site lists the access details and, where the source gives them, the practical facts.
