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Snowsure: 3.8
- Occasionally gets enough snow for skiing
- Is often closed due to a lack of snow
- Occasionally suffers from a lack of snow
- Rarely suffers from a lack of snow
- Kartalkaya is snowsure even in the poorest seasons
Kartalkaya Resort Reviews
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Latest
January 27, 2021
can elmas from
Turkey
can elmas from
Turkey
Wow, due to lack of recent reports I will have to chip in. Kartalkaya is a so-so resort, divided into two hotel zones which require separate passes very pricey. Hotels range from expensive to very expensive. Pistes short and not too steep. With recent improvements at Palandoken and Erciyes ski areas with longer runs, many hotel options and cheaper ski pass and food it really does not make sense to go to Kartalkaya unless you want a day trip from istanbul or Ankara. Anyhow, after a good snowfall if weather clears and wind has stopped off-piste can be quite good since not many people prefers on-piste and the mountain remains fresh powder.
November 27, 2019
Koray from
Turkey
Koray from
Turkey
February 09, 2015
Alec from
Lebanon
Alec from
Lebanon
If you really aim to go for snowboarding in Turkey and you think Kartalkaya is close and a good choice from Istanbul or Ankara then I would say to you avoid, avoid, avoid!
We were there from 2nd Feb to 6th Feb which was during the school holiday period. One reason everyone there was happy to charge you prices more expensive than the best Alpine resort with below average service.
I mean for such a small resort 50$ for 1 day pass is insane! Not to mention that the slopes are not the most interesting or even not so steep (but you can find a few good tree runs on the left side of the mountain).
And also you don't have much budget friendly hotel choices near the slopes. The cheapest I found was Gol Evi hotel which is 9km from the resort and there is no way to reach the resort other than taxi. This also applies from Bolu to Kartalkaya (50$ to reach per way!)
I'm not so sure why some parts of the slopes were closed on sunny days but then they open it for 2 hours before closure.
All in all, what a rip off!
Avoid!
P.s: I have also been to Sarikamis; much, much better!
March 03, 2013
Ege from
Turkey
Ege from
Turkey
Kartalkaya is a better choice compared to the most other ski resorts and mountains in Turkey because of it's comfort, quality hotels, less people and they have more than one track. Grand Kartal Otel and its brother Kartal serve excellent food with many choices. This is far more than what is expected on a mountain, alcoholic drinks are included too. Rooms in these hotels are big and comfy. These hotels have 6 lifts and the tracks are averaged about 1 to 2 kilometers long with medium to high pitch. Tracks are heading to different directions but most of them are joining at down. When skiing in a track it's possible to see a different landscape from the previous one. Grand Kartal's lobby is a big one and while sitting you can drink beverages or eat snacks at 5 pm. Don't go the cafe on the ski track at the top of the mountain, it's not included and expensive.
Dorukkaya hotel is another option to choose at Kartalkaya with its own ski lifts. This hotel is often chosen by the younger skiers and university student groups because of its social environment and night activities. Prices are a little bit cheaper compared to Grand Kartal. Hotel food is good but it is not so good enough to compare with Grand Kartal. It's tracks collected on a side of a hill and most of them are parallel or following one other, 2 tracks are the exceptions. Tracks are longer compared to Grand Kartal and they have bought a new faster chairlift. Many disadvantages of the tracks is pitch is generally low compared to Grand Kartal. Most tracks are not entertaining for experienced skiers.
April 27, 2012
Somebody Who Isn't Me from
Turkey
Somebody Who Isn't Me from
Turkey
I'm from Ankara; one of the closest big cities to Kartalkaya. It takes 2 hours car driving with the new Dörtdivan route from Ankara to Kartalkaya.
But if you are located in Istanbul, it is around 3 - 4 hours with car driving.
For last 10 years, during winters, I'm spending most of my weekends in Kartalkaya, so I guess I know much about the mountain. I wish to share my observations and experiences.
Some key points about Kartalkaya:
- Both from Istanbul and Ankara, every day (weekends and weekdays) there are daily buses direct from to cities to Kartalkaya. They depart very early in the morning, they arrive at Kartalkaya around 9:00 AM, so you will not miss the day, you will catch it from the beginning. To return back to cities, they leave Kartalkaya around 17:00 (when the slopes close). To reach those daily shuttle bus companies, you can have their information from the hotel receptions (via phone).
- This gives you an advantage to come for a daily trip, without accommodating. Ankara people are more lucky because it's much closer and daily trip becomes less tiring.
- Kartalkaya is the best option to ski or snowboard in Turkey, when you compared with other resorts. Only competitor would be Palandoken Mountain in Erzurum (and also Sarikamis could be a different option too) but they are located at the most east part of Turkey, so going with plane becomes another cost.
- Kartalkaya is an expensive resort. Unfortunately. Every service in mountain is overcharged! But when you have a hunger to ski or snowboard or when you want to do something different for a weekend, it becomes a nice option, because it's closeness to big cities like Istanbul and Ankara. So you may don't care about the expensiveness.
- When the weather is clear, sunny, without fog, and the snow condition is good, you can have excellent time for a couple of days. More than 3 days would be much, because you would get bored to ride on same slopes everyday.
- If you wish to stay long, weekdays would be cheaper, it would be fair.
- If you are going to organize your only winter holiday which you waited for whole summer, I suggest you to go to Alpes or Bulgaria. (Bulgaria stays extreme cheap when you compared for any season.)
- If you wish to go with your family, when the kids are at semester holiday, (so, I mean the semester period), stay away from the super-overcharged semester prices of Kartalkaya, even Alps would be cheaper option with flights included.
Conclusion:
* Daily trip is a good option from Ankara and Istanbul.
* Weekdays are fair.
* Weekends are ok to stay for 2 days.
* Long stays including weekends and semester holidays are meaninglessly overcharged, and you will get bored to ride in short, same slopes.
Kartalkaya is divided into two parts. Kartal Part is the left part and Doruk Part is the right part of the mountain. Unfortunately, you cannot ski on both parts with the same skipass. Here I wrote the pros and cons for each choices.
Common issues for both parts:
- You can finish every slope in one day. So your riding time pass in a loop on same slopes.
- Both part has a snowpark, organized and cared by volunteer snowboarders, there is no halfpipe, but the snowpark conditions are good when you compared with the overall attributes of Kartalkaya.
- The longest nonstop route is about 2,5 km, and there about total 6 or 7 different ski routes.
- Prices for both part are same or close.
Kartal Part Pros and Cons:
- Better off-piste than Doruk. Off-piste has more pines and more steep parts.
- At the afternoon, sun is leaving the area later than Doruk Part.
- The apres-ski and cafe option on piste is worse.
- Old mechanics (teleskis and chair lifts).
Doruk Part Pros and Cons
- Longer individual slopes than Kartal Part.
- The apres-ski and cafe option on piste is better.
- Has a one new chair lift which is fast and comfortable (on the longest slope), the rest of the mechanics are old.
About the hotels for whom want to accommodate:
Kartal Otel and Grand Kartal Otel:
- Gives you the free skipass for Kartal Part as you stay.
- Very polite and well trained staff, with a nice welcome.
- Incredibly delicious meals in both hotels (Kartal is even better than Grand Kartal about meals). They are using the all advantages of rich Bolu Mountain resources, so food they serve is very good.
Dorukkaya Otel:
- Gives you the free skipass for Doruk Part as you stay.
- Rude and uneducated staff, uncared service.
- Meals are catastrophic! Really bad when you compared with other hotels. (Still, foreigners could enjoy the meals, I guess they find it good when they compare with their own cuisine culture)
- The only positive thing I could say about this hotel is: the atmosphere of the lobby and apres-ski is more warm and enjoyable than other hotels.
- The only thing, the hotel owners' care is money they earned, they see the customers at the walking wallets. They don't care about the quality of their services.
- I guess, the only reason why people would chose Dorukkaya to stay is for to ski in Doruk Part.
Tips for daily visitors:
- Both Doruk Part and Kartal Part is competitive about slopes, they both have different advantages and disadvantages. Try and experience both of them in different days. But don't even think about purchasing both skipasses for the same day, it would be a meaningless expense, just choose one.
Have a nice trip ;)
March 04, 2012
akin kurtoglu from
Turkey
akin kurtoglu from
Turkey
This excellent location is under utilized due to the stupidity of both hotels establishing the facilities on the top. The longest of the pistes is only 2 kilometers... and you can only use the lifts and pistes of the hotel that you checked in. The same applies for one day skiers.
There are two main hotel groups up there, with Dorukkaya being slightly better in terms of rooms, one-dayer changing room, food quality, pistes, number of lifts, seasonal investment done and bigger lobby etc.
Kartal hôtels pistes and lifts are always more packed although it is plainly inferior than the Dorukkaya pistes. the reason is that they can arrange better deals with tourism agencies so most of them bring one dayers to Kartal hotel.
Another funny fact is that Kartal hotel has many lifts, however, 4 of them take you to the same location! So if you seek a variety of skiing slopes then you might be disappointed.
Dorukkaya hotel installed a new 4 person chair lift system this season. It has wind protection and is extremely faster than the previous one.
February 22, 2012
Tom S from
Turkey
Tom S from
Turkey
Stayed at Golden Keys Hotel for a couple of nights this week. The staff at the hotel are some of the best I've met in far and wide travels through Turkey - I usually don't tip much in hotels but several people deserved it in this case. I guess the hotel is a bit more pricey than the standard hotels at the resort but I'd be happy to pay again for the exclusivity (will do a review on trip advisor soon...)
Having dumped the ute into the free undercover valet parking there was a a shuttle minibus to the slopes, though they are only about 200m away - we never had to wait more than a couple of minutes for the bus when we called it. Reception gives you a choice of lift passes to either the Kartalkaya slopes or the Dorukaya ones. Having only one day to board in the end I hit the Kartalkaya side.
Good snow cover and a foot or more powder on some of the sheltered off-piste areas with only a limited number of other people going off-piste. Terrain is fairly easy going with few steep slopes of any extent. Lift-lines on a Monday were almost non-existent and I managed around 11 runs for about 2400m of descent over around 3hrs.
In the afternoon I was on babysitting while the other-half and our 5yr-old went for a private lesson (their first time on skis). The baby slopes are very limited, maybe about 40m long with some rope-tows and one magic-carpet that is off-bounds unless you are with official instructors from Kartalkaya or Dorykaya. Beware of instructors giving you a per-hour price and then saying their lessons are only 50 minutes - rather disappointed by this after a 220TL charge for a combined lesson for 1 adult and 1 kid.
Ski rental (adult and kids) was easy but beware off fitting the equipment the afternoon before - I think we were charged for 2 days use when we only had the kit out of the rental shop for a single day.
January 24, 2011
Philip Upson from
Turkey
Philip Upson from
Turkey
We stayed in Dorukaya Hotel (at Kartalkaya) over Christmas last year (2010). Nice Hotel: relatively small rooms but adequate (unless like us you have three young kids - and a bit more space would be handy). Food was good and plentiful. Some nice waiters but the hotel reception suffers from the often found grumpy unfriendly Turkish hotel staff. Note: many of these probably do not ski and just come up from the coastal hotels so don't expect the Austrian/Swiss welcome here.
The absurdity of the two hotel chains having separate lift tickets will be a bug bare to most foreigners who have skied more developed resorts, and could easily finish all the on-piste routes of both areas in one day. But saying that you can off course on one day go and buy the other pass. There really are no appropriate slopes for absolute beginners, and safety is an issue (on both the so called baby slopes as well as most others).
Like others we found the hotel full and the slopes empty. weird. Patchy snow in places (i.e. grass) but runs still open. Anyway we attempted it and once over the windblown pasture we got to a nice black run. I saw in another post that the off-piste was untracked during powder and we found that too but, unfortunately, the powder was gone and a sort of spring snow was found so we still managed much off-piste on the untracked sides of the pistes. The trees off the side of the only chair look good if you have powder.
Price looks expensive to start with but as meals and lift passes and drinks are included, as well as kiddies club, and pool etc, it was not too bad. Some children accommodated for free too.
Christmas...of course they had not yet heard of it...so not a decoration in sight...but that did not matter.
All in all, for a few days a good break from the cities. But not the Alps by a long shot.
January 16, 2011
Deniz Ilhan from
Turkey
Deniz Ilhan from
Turkey
I was at the Kartal/Grand Kartal hotel piste side of Kartalkaya yesterday for a one-day trip provided by RadikalTur. I counted on the weather forecast of snow-forecast.com. The forecast was that it was going to be partly cloudy and clear during the day accompanied by relatively warm weather and weak winds. I could tell that this forecast has been mostly verified. However, it was dominantly partly cloudy during the day and as it drew close to 16.00, fog began rolling in from the upper slopes.
As far as I can evaluate, the snow quality is 6.5 out of 10. There is sufficient snow for everyone to enjoy, both for the piste skiers/boarders and off-piste skiers/boarders. However, it is hoped that the snow quality would rise by further snow.
I should mention that I never had the chance to fully benefit from the new "Snow Park" that had been completed some seasons ago. Before, the Park was never sufficiently ploughed for the visitors, with ramps hidden by uneven snow, and this time it was 'being' ploughed hence not available for utilization.
Also, I can't emphasize enough the inadequacy of Kartal/Grand Kartal Hotel's lodge (4 changing cabinets and jammed organization of lockers) for one-day visitors when, say, four buses of visitors swarm the lodge. Dorukkaya's lodge for one-day visitors is 'way' better.
However, I do not know anywhere more adequate for snow-aficionados around Marmara region to enjoy for now. I have never been an Uludag or Kartepe frequenter.
Hope to inform you with more recent news!
Happy skiing/boarding!
January 04, 2011
Kubilay from
Turkey
Kubilay from
Turkey
Kartalkaya is more advanced compared to Uludag in terms of signs, pistes and the crowd. As it is hard to reach, locals or novices do not bother you there.
The hotels are expensive, especially during weekends, so try pensions nearby but don't expect anything.
Skipass is expensive but if you take the card of one of the pensions they would give you a discount.
Generally it is the best place who do not have time to travel more distant resorts.
Nearest