Uludağ

The great mountain above Bursa

Uludağ means ‘great mountain’ in Turkish, and the name fits: at 2,543 m it is the highest mountain in the Marmara region, rising in Bursa Province above the city of Bursa. Its highest peak is Kartaltepe, and to the north lie a series of high plateaus, Sarıalan, Kirazlıyayla, Kadıyayla and Sobra. In antiquity the range was known as Olympus, the Mysian Olympus at its western end and the Bithynian Olympus at its eastern, and Bursa itself was called Prusa ad Olympum for its position beneath the peak.

The skiing

Our data records 25 km of pistes and 16 lifts, with a base at 1,767 m and a top elevation of 2,543 m, the same height as the summit of Kartaltepe. That gives 776 m of vertical, and a top above 2,200 m means altitude does its part for snow reliability. Sixteen lifts for 25 km is an unusually dense network, so uphill capacity is not the limiting factor here; the size of the piste network is. This is a resort for a few days of skiing rather than a fortnight, and one whose interest lies as much in where it is as in what it offers on the slopes. Our data does not break the runs down by difficulty, and traditional charm and scenic views are its tagged features. Charm here means a mountain with a long human history rather than an Alpine village aesthetic, and the views from the highest point in the Marmara region need no explaining. Beginners and intermediates will find 25 km comfortable; experts will treat it as a curiosity rather than a destination.

Hermits, monks and a wolfram mine

Uludağ has a long history beyond skiing. Throughout the Middle Ages the mountain held hermitages and monasteries, a monastic centre that rose in the 8th century and kept its prestige into the 11th, linked to the monks’ resistance to the iconoclast emperors. Saint Joannicius the Great, one of the great monks of the Christian East, lived here as a hermit. Near the summit is an abandoned wolfram mine: the mine and its integrated plant were built in 1974 at a cost of 60 million US dollars and closed in 1989 because production costs were too high. Today the mountain is a national park of rich flora and fauna, popular for trekking and camping in summer and for skiing in winter.

Practical

The nearest airport in our data is Istanbul (IST), roughly 140 km away as the crow flies, which makes Uludağ a plausible add-on to a city visit for anyone wanting a few days on skis. The season runs from December to April.