Gule gule turkey
The turkey adventure has concluded for 2/3 rds of us. Brendan is kickin it somewhere in colorado and im sitting on my couch in ak. Ian however decided to stay in turkey for a few extra days with Burak (our istanbul couch surfing host). This decision was made at 2 in the morning after a long night, about 6 hours before our plane was to leave for boston and with about a hundred dollars left in the bank. Stoked to see how that is going to work out. As of the last update, hes bringing 20 people into istanbul to show them the way of urban boarding and seeing a Holy Ghost concert tonight. Sounds rad, definitely a little jealous.
Our last post of pics was up to our first day in palandoken. Our second day we got word of free lift tickets in kartalkaya, so we dipped out early, but not before getting a few shots.
Our first and last rail of the trip. Definitely looking and feeling a little rusty on this thing.
We set this feature up in the most high profile location in front of this big spendy five star hotel. It was a 15 stair into a 10 foot drop right after the rail. We started setting up the feature then realized their were two cars in the way. Not only did the hotel move the cars for us and let us hit the feature until we got our tricks, but they also gave us a tour of their ski resort. On top of that, the tour guide was probably the best looking girl we had seen in turkey.
Once I was able to pull Brendan and Ian from their new found turkish love, we pulled an all nighter to get to kartalkaya for the next day of riding. Kartalkaya was okay. We rode the resort(thanks to burak), got some pow slashes, brendan and ian impressed locals with park trickery, met the most outrageous expat ever that called brendan and i out for checking out his daughters, hung out with timo and his park crew, skipped out on a 50 dollar bill for instant coffee, drank lots of efes, got banned to the dumpster area to sleep in our van, got kicked out of the dorukkaya hotel, got tricks and peaced out.
Mt. Ilgaz. That run down the middle is the one and only run on the mountain.
Though getting kicked out of Dorukkaya was a bummer, it became apparent hours later that it was a blessing in disguise. We showed up in Ilgaz, scoped the area, then instantly found the funnest people in the area and had the best turkish style dance party for about 2 hours before they had to get on the bus and head home. So we were left high and dry at 8, pretty positive we werent going to find anything that could compare. We were wrong, we found the university owned hotel and continued the turkish style circle dancing into the wee hours of the night.
We awoke to blue bird skies and probably the raddest zone we had seen on the whole trip. There were big mountains, bowls, cliffs, trees, everything, all within hiking distance. Unfornately, this was going to be our last day on snow so we stayed close to the mini resort and stacked a bunch of footy.
Again the night went off, with a few rounds of flip cup before another long night of dancing with our new friends.
Friends
Once the music stopped in the disco, we came back to the hotel and the guy on the far right of the picture above played the best set ever, ever. He played all these turkish songs that everyone knew and sang along to. It was hands down the best kumbaya i have every been a part of. So rad.
Party face
After the second epic night in Ilgaz, we woke to rain in the morning so we dipped to istanbul to do the tourist thing for a few hours before brendan had to leave the next morning.
We stayed a Burak's place in Kadikoy. This is from his terrace.
Marilyn
Bird chasing
The must see tourist site of istanbul, the blue mosque.
Peoples love for tv is universal.
The trip was awesome. It will be a tough one to beat. We were lucky enough to met such great people that really showed us a great time and treated us really well (minus Dorukkaya management). Thanks everyone and to the few of you that are coming to alaska this summer or if you want to make a trip, stay in touch. We would be super stoked to be able to return the favor.
We should have some more pics and some sort of video up within the next few weeks.
Even in Turkey they know that we Alaskans like to party!
Sumela Monastary. These monks had a good view.
I wanted to surf this right point so bad... I didnt see a surfboard the whole time I was in Turkey.
Ramy made a turn like this on our ride down a face in Palandoken... it didnt end well. Ive got it on tape if you wanna see it.
A LOT of our mornings looked like this. I kinda miss sleeping in my boardbag.
We saw a small suspension bridge so we decided to stop for a break from driving. Coincidentally on the other side of the road Ram spotted some caves in a ribbon of sediment about half way up a plateau. These caves were really old, and they were dug out of this soft rock by humanswho knows how long ago. they went way back into the side of the plateau with seperate rooms and were all interconnected. There were even upper and lower levels. This was a surprise find and really cool.
Ahhh Sarikamish. Our second opportunity at fresh powder was not wasted.
BRT has a nice backside!
This kid played tug-of-war with my snowboard then wanted me to pay him for it! Brendan promptly knocked him out. Dont f*ck with doom/love!
Im always gonna wonder what was behind door 34.
We just loved the allys in Ispır. 
OK. So this pic shows how our trip almost came to a sudden and horrific end! The viz, as you can see is about one pole distance. (25 meters) We were coming up a pass and it started getting really slick. After sliding backwards and stomping the breaks for a really stylish minibus backside 180, I maneuvered to the next straight stretch of road so we could don our chains and show the hill who was boss. As I popped the trunk to pull out the chains Ramy scampered over to the side of the road to take a pee. Not more than 10 seconds after I say to ramy; ''Do you hear something?'' I turn around to find a giant plow truck sliding out of controll right towards us. Im frozen and Ramy dives into the ditch still peeing as the 10 ton truck blows by, just a foot from our minibus and Rams stained shorts. 
As we were rejected by the Kachkar we were diverted to a tiny mountain village were we taught a few middle aged muslim fellows how to snowboard. It was actually really spiritual for me to drop in on a jump while the priest wailed in arabic over the loud speakers, and the call for prayer echoed over the snowy village.
Turkey is a bit behind in their on-mountain fashion. The silly jester hats, dinosaur tails, multi colored fleece tassles and hats with bright colored hair coming out the top are all the rage.
Doom Love summit at Palandöken.
BRT made it look cool but I dont wanna talk about this stair jump thing.
Istanbul is a seemingly endless city. We spent quite a few hours exploring the nooks and crannies of a pretty popular area called Taksim. The density and age of the city is so different than other places, its hard to explain.
Our team is constantly striving for the perfect hand-plant. A lot of them went down on this snowbank. It was the first thing we shredded in Turkey.
We got pretty busy our first night in Uludag: Ramtime baggin the first drop of the trip.
This guy had never seen this kind of weapon so i demonstrated its power for him.
Home... for a little bit.
BRT went huge on this deck drop/gap over stairset. The hotel manager proceded to yell a whole bunch of Turkish words out the window at us. I will translate what he said since im so good at Turkish now: ``You doomslashlove boys are amazing! Im so glad you are snowboarding on my deck! I love your website and will have a bronze statue of this jump permanently placed on the deck along with a plaque with your guys names on it! ``
Ramharter J showin the locals whos boss.
So this is what it feels like to be winners!
All obstacles were ripped.
If you go to turkey and can find this sticker, take a pic of you next to it and I will buy you 7 icecream cones!
Late night slashin.
We snaked a T-bar and caught sunset from the top of Uludag.
Reppin an rollin.
I tested the high speed stability of the minibus. Im not sure how many miles we covered but it was a roadtrip to say the least.
Warp speed.
Ram always kills.
