Air Mail: Double Black Diamond in the Rough

Everyone is welcome, as long as you can walk back up once you ski down.

About 330 winding, transmission-straining miles north of Baghdad’s Green Zone, in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, Iraqi Kurds, and a few foreigners, are re-discovering skiing near the border with Iran.

Here on Mount Halgurd—the second-highest mountain in Iraq—the ski runs are good, the powder is fresh, and the tourist crowds remain nonexistent. Take a photograph and, if you Photoshop out the squat, concrete houses and the military checkpoints, you could easily be in Telluride or Whistler, Verbier or Courmayeur.

There are a few other differences, too. The Kurdish soldiers manning the checkpoints often get bored and can detain visitors for an interminable amount of time. Leftover land mines from the Iran-Iraq War, in the 1980s, remain buried beneath the snow. But neither of those obstacles deterred 35 people, including eight teenage Syrian refugees, three Americans, two Europeans, and about 20 locals, from coming here for the Third Annual Iraq Ski Rally, which took place from February 19 to 22.

Kurdish soldiers guard the area around Choman. On occasion they join in on the skiing, too.

Skiing in Iraq is not as much of a misnomer as it may sound. Black-and-white-film footage from 1952 shows Iraqis zigzagging down Mount Halgurd on wooden skis. However, there’s been little skiing since the end of the reign of King Faisal II, in 1958, after which a series of wars between the Kurds and Iraq’s central authority, Iraq’s invasions of Iran and Kuwait, and the 11-year occupation by the United States discouraged almost all tourism, let alone adventure expeditions.

Omar Hussein, 34, grew up in Choman, a village a few miles from Mount Halgurd. He often heard stories about how, in the 1970s, before Saddam Hussein seized power, his father’s friends and neighbors would climb up the mountain, clip on wooden skis, and sail down the slope. When he was a teenager, Hussein and some of his teenage friends tried it themselves. Lacking the proper ski equipment, they used their sneaker laces to tie themselves to old skis and pushed off downhill with their lives in their hands.

Choman or “Chomanix”?

Then, in 2011, a Norwegian skier named Kit Monsen came to the area in an attempt to become the first person to ski Halgurd (11,834 feet) and the nearby Cheekha Dar (11,847 feet), which straddles the Iran-Iraq border. “All I heard was that there is snow at this time of year so I brought my gear and off we went,” Monsen told Travelmag. Hussein helped lead the team, but rain and snow kept them from the top.

It wasn’t until February 2018 that the American mountaineer and Iraq War veteran Stacy Bare, in partnership with Dutch guide Jan Bakker, led the first complete ski ascent and descent of Halgurd. They went away nicknaming the mountain range “Chomanix,” a twist on the renowned French skiing village of Chamonix.

These attempts gave Hussein an idea. “I bought these other cheap skis from Iran, and we started skiing around.” Then, when other private expeditions from Europe and America arrived in Choman, he bought their skis, too. “Soon enough we had enough for a small club.” Hussein is now the owner of the adventure outfitter VI Kurdistan and co-founder of the Iraq Ski Rally.

A backcountry skier sails down a pristine run in Iraq’s Zagros Mountains.

“For those who want to just ski a nice piste, have a beer, then go to a disco, it’s probably not so appealing,” said James Willcox, co-founder of adventure-travel company Untamed Borders, which brings a group of international tourists here most years. But, he adds, “the chance to truly blaze a tourist trail is a rare opportunity.”

This year a group of holidaying NGO workers aided Hussein’s company in constructing a makeshift downhill course for the ski rally. They then helped newcomers and regulars alike strap on new K2 skis and led each other down the piste before hiking back up and doing it all again—depending on how many tumbles they had taken. On the second day of the event, the group’s top skiers climbed to a nearby ridgeline and skied down as fast as they could, with awards given to the top three “local” skiers and the top three “international” skiers.

Winners of the downhill race during the second Iraq Ski Rally. Each participant climbed up 2,000 feet before skiing down.

While the Korek Mountain Resort to the west offers the country’s one and only chairlift, and a mediocre skiing experience, to backcountry enthusiasts the area around Choman offers seemingly unlimited runs. But adventure tourists and local skiers face a tough buy-in from the regional government and the military.

Stringent searches—or “having tea”—with the local and regional police in Choman happen frequently to outsiders. And while Sasan Othman Awni, the minister of municipalities and tourism of the Kurdistan Regional Government, says he is open to adventure tourism, according to Hussein, most of the ministry’s people “don’t really know the meaning of adventure; they [only] know about tourism.”

For now, however, the slopes of Europe get more crowded, and the people of this region, who have been leaving—and dying—on boats bound for Europe, hope that the likes of Vail Resorts, Alterra Mountain Company, or the Powdr Corporation will share their vision and help popularize skiing in Iraq.

“There is more to our country than oil and war,” says Hussein. “There is so much natural beauty here and so many friendly people—it has forever been overlooked by everyone.”

The New Zealand Herald: Iraq: Skiing on the edge

Judith Hamblyn gets a taste for the ups and downs of ski touring on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran.

"Did you hear that?" I asked my companion, James. The crack of the high-powered rifle was unmistakable as it echoed up the valley high in the Zagros Mountains on the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran. "Yeah," he said, "but I only worry when it's automatic gunfire."

I was on the slopes of Mt Halgurd — at 3607m, the highest peak in Iraq — feeling extremely visible in bright-green pants and a candy-pink helmet. I started to think the warnings I'd got about going to Iraq might be true. My brother-in-law told me darkly that I would be kidnapped, and the Canadian mine-disposal expert I had sat next to on the midnight flight from Istanbul a few days earlier said the area is still littered with mines from the Iran-Iraq war 20 years ago.

As we edged our way down the mountainside, James and I agreed that whoever was firing the rifle was probably just out hunting. After about 40 minutes, we came across a small group of men close to where the snow petered out on a rough four-wheel-drive access track. At their feet was a campfire with a steaming pot of tea and, to one side, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and what looked like a shotgun. After exchanging pleasantries — James in pidgin Kurdish and me via nervous blinks — they offered us both tea. James was also given a skinny Turkish cigarette; for me, a sticky bun. After about 15 minutes of friendly chatting, we went on our way, none the wiser about what they could possibly be doing out here, roaming about the mountainside with a Kalashnikov.

I'd arrived in the nearby town of Choman the day before with five other skiers as part of a reconnaissance trip with UK adventure travel company Untamed Borders. We were accompanied by James, the company co-founder, an international ski guide and several local guides and drivers.

My journey to Iraqi Kurdistan began several years ago. I love ski touring and I love travelling, so combining the two seemed like a good way to have a holiday and a bit of adventure at the same time.

Ski touring turns any hill with snow on it into your very own skifield without relying on ski lifts or helicopters to get you uphill. "Skins" attach to regular skis with special bindings that release at the heel. The skins grip the snow allowing you to go uphill on your skis.

We had wound our way to Choman from Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, along the famous Hamilton Road, built in the late 1920s by New Zealand-born engineer Archibald Hamilton. The road was the first through the rugged mountains and deep ravines of Iraqi Kurdistan to the Iranian border and opened the area — which had been barely accessible for animal caravans — to motorised transport.

Though the road has been improved over the years, traces of the original, carved into the near-vertical cliff faces of the canyons of Rawandiz, can still be seen.

Food and drink is never far from a skier's mind. We were delighted when one of our guides, Karwen, took us to a cake shop in the border town of Haji Omaran. The owner looked bemused as we crowded into his shop to ooh and aah over his chocolate-dipped biscuits, squishy sponge rolls and pillowy eclairs.

Lunches and breakfasts were a more simple affair of lavash or naan bread with salty white cheeses, eggs, plump fresh dates and sweet rose-scented black tea. Dinners at our homestay in Choman were a more lavish spread of hearty soups and tagines flavoured with earthy Middle-Eastern spices, served with pickled vegetables, olives, salad greens, rice or couscous, and bread.

We were invited to the annual snow festival at the Korek Mountain Resort near Soran on the Hamilton Road. Opened in 2014, Korek is a small resort serviced by a 4km Doppelmayr access gondola to a top station at 1690m. With only two carpet lifts for skiing, Korek is more about relaxing, enjoying the spectacular views, and scaring yourself silly on the zipline that sends you plummeting head first down the mountain.

The festival drew families from as far away as Baghdad and we were surprised to find the foreign skiers — us — were one of the headline acts. I'm not sure if our impromptu attempt at synchronised skiing wowed the crowds but we had fun doing it and being the centre of attention.

The Guardian: Iraqi Kurdistan: intrepid skiers break new ground

Three hours’ drive from Mosul, the small unspoilt pistes at ski resorts around Mount Halgurd, northern Iraq, are luring the first overseas tour groups

Iraq’s sole ski lift, at the Korek Mountain resort

Will Coldwell

Mon 13 Mar 2017 11.00 GMT

‘For those who want to just ski a nice piste, have a beer, then go to a disco, it’s probably not so appealing.” James Willcox, co-founder of adventure travel company Untamed Borders, is talking about who might – and would definitely not – be interested in its latest offering: a ski tour of Iraq.

In January, Untamed Borders ran what was “probably the first ever commercial ski trip” to the country, taking a group of six intrepid travellers to the region around Mount Halgurd in the north-east of Iraq, three hours’ drive from Mosul and 500km north of Baghdad. Flying in to the city of Ebril (via Istanbul) they spent two weeks ski-touring this part of Iraqi Kurdistan, through landscapes rarely seen by western travellers.

Skiing near Choman

The ski season might be coming to a close, but if you’re looking for a trip for 2018 that’s got a little more edge to it than a week in a chalet in Chamonix, then this could be for you.

Willcox and his team have years of experience organising tours to less-travelled countries such as Uzbekistan and Somalia, and this tour was led by a guide who has previously led skiers in Afghanistan. The tour cost $2,400 for 10 days, excluding flights.

The tour group skied Choman and Mount Halgurd in January, while boarding with a local family. It also visited Penjwen, near the city of Sulaymaniyah, which has a nordic ski club, and the Korek Mountain, a “tiny” ski resort with a gondola, which was celebrating its annual Snow Festival.

Ski touring near Mount Halgurd - the highest peak entirely within Iraq.

Still, as one would expect, skiing in Iraq comes with its own unique challenges. The Foreign Office advises against all travel to much of the country, and all but essential travel to the rest. As a result, many insurance policies are void, but Untamed Borders is able to recommend companies that still offer cover.

“You have all the usual issues of skiing, but also need to avoid landmines, and unexploded ordnance from the 1980s near the Iraq-Iran border,” says Willcox. “You can’t get too close. But we work with local partners, guides in the area who know this, who know the areas you can’t ski for various reasons. We also use GPS, so if there’s a whiteout you don’t stray from where you’re meant to go.”

Not surprisingly, Mike Hinckley, 56, one of the skiers who joined January’s tour, had his reservations. Among them he listed “Islamic State, ongoing aspects of war and the perception that I, as a US citizen, might not be exactly welcome.” But he was drawn in by the opportunity to ski in a place where “virtually no one, if anyone, has ever skied before”. He admits it was frustrating at times, having to work around the “logistical, social or administrative limitations” of skiing in a country with a completely different set of safety concerns to a regular mountain zone, but it was about more than just the skiing.

“When we attended the Korek Snow Festival, we interacted with so many people (and TV personalities), and they seemed so happy to meet us, talk and take selfies with us – that was wild,” says Hinckley. “At that moment, the skiing almost became secondary.”

Rudaw: Chilly Choman welcomes international skiers to Kurdish mountains

CHOMAN, Kurdistan Region — In a bid to raise awareness about the types of tourism opportunities available in the Kurdistan Region, international skiers participated in the Winter Festival in Choman on Friday.

"Today we will participate in the second annual Iraqi Kurdistan ski rally which will take place in these beautiful Kurdish mountains," Slovenian ski instructor Ana Tasic told Rudaw English.

Choman is located about 93 kilometers northeast of the Kurdistan Region's capital of Erbil.

"The idea of the festival is to bring international skiers that come here to compete in a race and to put on a festival, to put on a show," said James Willcox, a British co-organizer of the event. 

Around 30 skiers are expected to compete in the race from nine countries. The skiers come from across Europe, the United States, the Kurdistan Region's Penjwen, and from the IDP and refugee community. 

He works with Untamed Borders, an organization that aims to bring tourists to some of the more untouched places on Earth.

"We hope that this festival will grow and grow, and attract people from all over Kurdistan and all over Iraq ... and international people," said Willcox.

Suzy Madge is one of the international participants from the United Kingdom.

"There is a really good potential for helping other people come to Kurdistan," she said. 

Madge lauded the hospitality, friendliness, food, and safety of Kurdistan. 

"The mountains are wonderful for skiing, for hiking..." she said.

Driving to Choman, especially in the winter, can take hours because of winding, narrow roads and steep inclines.

As the race was set to begin, snowfall and winds picked up.

"This is what winter sports look like — sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it snows. So despite the bad visibility, we had a good festival and ski race. The people are having fun in the snow, so I think we had a good day in the beautiful Kurdish mountains," said one of the estimated 100-150 participants.

The first snow festival in Choman dates back to 1952.