TR: Troodos Mountain, Cyprus (March 8, 2019)

**cloud cult** · 03-08-2019, 12:38 PM

We are currently six months into a 9 month (or 12 month, we haven't decided yet) around the world trip. More about that later.

I know about Troodos ski area on the island of Cyprus because I have an advanced degree in Obscure Ski Areas. We are booking our RTW on the fly and had not planned to come to Cyprus until about about three weeks before we actually got here. Skiing was in the back of my mind as a possibility -- the main unknown is if the ski season would extend into mid-March. The ski area website is cryptic and the Facebook page seems to get updated every few years or so.

We landed in Cyprus after months of at-times hard third-world travel, and found almost instant relaxation. We started asking around learned that not only was Troodos open but they were actually having a pretty good season.

We like to visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites and went to two of them on the island.

20190302_152227 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Then we went to the beach.

20190301_171613 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

And another. Matchbox FTW!

20190304_133958 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

In Paphos we rented a car and drove 90 minutes up to a mountainside village called Platres. The main issue now was not snow but clothing. On assessing things it seemed that as long as it was not too cold and did not snow we would be fine, except for gloves. I wound up getting a cheap pair in a discount store and Lil Cloud Cult got one in a roadside stand. We were up to bright sunny skies and headed up the mountain.

20190308_085055 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

We hit snow before the village of Troodos, where several ski tours start from.

20190308_090020 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

The main part of the ski area is on Mt Olympus. A second area was built nearby to accommodate beginners and is called Sun Valley. This is where the rentals are. We arrived just before two busloads of students.

20190308_092314 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Soon we had our 18 euro ski passes in hand (no wickets) and were riding the t-bar.

20190308_101521 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

The Cloud Cultette decided to XC ski so it was Lil Cloud Cult and I all day.

20190308_095533 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Lunch break of olives and red wine, and showed off our rental skis draped over the back of our rental Kia.

20190308_121914 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

The Sun Valley side had about 200 vertical feet and four runs, served by a t bar and a rope tow. Snow depth was advertised as 63 cm but it seemed more like 3 feet to me.

After lunch we drove over to the Mt. Olympus side. It seems you might have been able to ski from one mountain to the other but it was not entirely clear how to do that.

20190308_123748 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

The Mt. Olympus side has more like 700 vertical served by a triple and a tbar and maybe a dozen runs. Also much steeper. That's snowy mountains in Turkey in the distance.

20190308_123804 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Looking back on Sun Valley.

20190308_124020 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Looking north over the Mediterranean. Had spectacular weather all day, with a few clouds rising up from the coast and temperatures in the upper 30s.

20190308_123754 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

20190308_124920 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

Slushy snow made the skiing seem tougher than it should have so called it a day at 3.30. Overall a superb day!

20190307_153935 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr

**BCMtnHound** · 03-08-2019, 12:51 PM

Very cool. I walked the Mtn Olympus summit trail in Jan 2006, there wasn’t enough snow that year to ski unfortunately. Nice to see it in operation!

**LightRanger** · 03-08-2019, 01:56 PM

This is rad. I appreciate the obscure ones.

My mom showed me a scrapbook a while back with some of Nana's photos from when she was a WAAF during the War. One of them was her skiing in Lebanon from when she was stationed in Beirut. I had no idea that she'd ever put on skis, and still have no idea if she ever skied again, but I don't think so. Super random that it was there and not, say, California when they moved here in the early 50s.

Would be fun to ski the Med sometime.