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A Snow Day in Antalya from Saklıkent to Bakırlıtepe
Cultural

A Snow Day in Antalya from Saklıkent to Bakırlıtepe

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For people who live on the coast, winter in Antalya usually means rain and a mild sun; but the Beydağları range right behind the city is white on the very same days.

Konyaaltı, Antalya
Cultural
Radar Editör
October 15, 2026

About Trip

For people who live on the coast, winter in Antalya usually means rain and a mild sun; but the Beydağları range right behind the city is white on the very same days. On the mountain side of the Konyaaltı district, built on the northern slope of Bakırlıdağ, the Saklıkent ski center sits fifty kilometers from the city center and is one of the ski areas closest to the Mediterranean. This article is a day plan for those who want to spend the morning on the slopes and the afternoon on the beach. The climb up the Doyran road, snow at Saklıkent, the observatory a little higher up on Bakırlıtepe, and the return to the sea in the late afternoon.

Getting there

Saklıkent lies west of Antalya, on the Beydağları, fifty kilometers northwest of the city center. The road passes through the western neighborhoods of Konyaaltı and climbs to Doyran; Doyran is a mountain neighborhood on the Saklıkent road, about fifteen kilometers from the city, known for the small reservoir on the Doyran stream. There is a folk tale told about the neighborhood's name. Hearing that Pirinç Çelebi had built a mosque without his knowledge, the Teke bey sent two soldiers; Çelebi hosted them at his house, gave each a ladle of pilaf and each of their horses a handful of feed. The soldiers thought this would never be enough, but neither they nor their horses could finish what was put before them. The place was first called Doyuran, "the one that fills you up", and over time the vowel dropped and it became Doyran. According to the Wikipedia article Doyran became a township in 1998 and turned back into a neighborhood with the metropolitan law of 2012. This is the first place where you feel you have left the coast. The red pines thin out, maquis scrub mixes with the rocks, and the air suddenly cools. The Konyaaltı district governorate's page says the fifty-kilometer Antalya-Saklıkent road takes about an hour from the city center to the resort; on snow days it takes longer, because the last section is a mountain road and chains or winter tires may be needed. Public transport is seasonal and limited; check the current announcements of the Konyaaltı and Antalya metropolitan municipalities before setting out to see whether a bus or shuttle is running. If you drive, leave early. The road will be empty and you will catch the first sun on the east-facing slopes of the Beydağları.

What to see

Saklıkent is not a town but a ski complex. In the words of the Antalya Governorate, it consists of about five hundred chalets and ski facilities on the northern slope of Bakırlıdağ. Red-roofed houses step up the slope; the road between them leads to the foot of the pistes. The ski grounds lie between two thousand and two thousand four hundred meters. According to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism there are two pistes, one easy and one of medium difficulty, served by two ski lifts. So this is not a resort on the scale of Uludağ or Palandöken; for beginners, families with children and those content with a sled, the scale is just right. For experienced skiers the real attraction is not the length of the runs but the view. From the top on a clear day you see the snowy ridges of the Beydağları on one side and, far off on the other, the grey blue of the Mediterranean.

Snow depth varies from source to source. The Governorate gives an average depth of one to two meters and says it occasionally reaches four meters at the summit; the district governorate and the Culture Directorate speak of fifty centimeters to one meter during the ski season. Both may be true. On the lower runs and early in the season the snow is thin, and it thickens toward the summit and toward February. According to the Governorate the season opens on the tenth of December, runs until the tenth of April and offers about a hundred and twenty days of skiing; the number of sunny days over a season is between fifty and sixty. These figures change from one year to the next; check the resort's snow and piste report for the day before you leave. According to the sources the resort was founded in 1971; since then it has been the address for anyone who wants to go up and see Antalya's winter. The Wikipedia article attributes the founding to the governor of Antalya at the time, Hüseyin Öğütçen.

The sources also differ on the number of runs and lifts. The resort that the Culture Directorate sums up as two pistes and two ski lifts is described in more detail by Wikipedia, which counts four runs and three lifts. The highest capacity lift is the Karakaya chairlift, which carries eight hundred people an hour to the top and serves the red and black runs; visitors who want to go up to the café for the view use it too. The Saklıbel ski lift drops intermediate skiers at the head of the blue run, and the small baby lift installed in 2015 takes beginners to the yellow run. According to the same source the red run is four thousand meters long, with sharp bends and steep pitches; the black run drops straight down for one thousand five hundred meters without a single bend; the blue run is also one thousand five hundred meters but has gentle bends and is the step before the harder runs. The three hundred meter yellow run is for lessons with an instructor, and there is a separate sled run. The resort's own announcement tells you which runs are open on the day.

There are things to do besides skiing. Walking up between the chalets, watching the dark green of the junipers above the snow, photographing the icicles hanging from the roofs is the quiet side of the day. The flat ground beside the piste suits sledding; those with small children can stay at the foot of the run. At noon, with the sun directly overhead, the snow dazzles. Keep sunglasses and a high-factor sunscreen with you; at two thousand meters the March sun burns harder than at the sea.

Bakırlıtepe and the observatory

Above Saklıkent, on Bakırlıtepe at about two thousand five hundred meters, stands the TÜBİTAK National Observatory. According to TÜBİTAK's twentieth anniversary news item the observatory opened on 5 September 1997; the campus operates the RTT150, a telescope with a one and a half meter mirror that is among the country's largest optical telescopes, along with the one-meter T100 and the sixty-centimeter T60. The white domes stand on a bare summit reached by a mountain road of a few kilometers from above the ski center, on one of the highest ridges of the Beydağları. The observatory is a research institution and is not regularly open to the public. TÜBİTAK occasionally organizes sky observation events, and the campus is shown to visitors during them; application details and dates are followed through the institution's own announcements. Whether the road is open in winter and whether the climb to the observatory is possible depends on the day; add this part to your plan with the proviso that the road is open. Even if you cannot reach the summit, you can make out the domes from the top of the pistes. There you understand why Antalya's sky is so clear and why the city's lights stay so far away.

The observatory's story begins twenty years after the ski center's. According to Wikipedia, work on its founding started in 1991, and its founding and operating regulation was published in the Official Gazette in 1995. The first scientific observation was made in January 1997 with the forty-centimeter T40 telescope, while the RTT150, built through a Russian and Turkish partnership, received its first light in September 2001. Today the observatory is part of the Türkiye National Observatories infrastructure run jointly by TÜBİTAK and Atatürk University. Among the work done from Bakırlıtepe is the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a giant star called HD 208897, about two hundred and ten light years away; the result came out of ten years of precise measurements with the RTT150 and was announced in 2017. With the same telescope, follow-up of data from the Planck satellite identified forty-seven previously unknown galaxy clusters.

Skiing in the morning, the sea in the afternoon

Saklıkent's motto, as written on the Governorate's page, is "skiing by day, the sea in the afternoon", and this is a realistic plan especially in late February and March. Thanks to the mild climate Saklıkent is, in the Governorate's words, the ski center with the highest temperatures in the country; it is possible to live two seasons in a single day. The plan goes like this. Leave the city early, be at the foot of the slopes as they open, ski or walk until noon. Have lunch on the mountain and start down in the early afternoon. Two hours later you are on the Konyaaltı shore; in March the sea is cool, but on a sunny afternoon a walk below the cliffs, and for the brave even a short swim, is possible. For the second half of the day Konyaaltı Beach or the Lower Düden Waterfall in Lara are close; both have their own entries in Discover.

Season and time of day

The safest window for snow is from mid-January to mid-March; early December and early April are the edge days of the season, and there may be no snow. On weekends and during the mid-term school holiday the resort gets crowded; if you can pick a weekday, the slopes and the road are far more comfortable. In summer Saklıkent is a completely different place. The chalets turn into a cool highland settlement, and people escaping Antalya's heat come up here and to the nearby Feslikan plateau. Autumn is also a time to come; in October the junipers and bare rock give the best photographs in the clear air.

Practical notes

  • Get current information on ski equipment, the ski school and the lifts from the resort's own announcements; we do not print fees and hours here, because they change every season.
  • Dress in layers; it is warm on the piste in the sun, cold in the shade and the wind. Gloves, a hat and waterproof shoes are essential.
  • The road can close in winter; check the road condition announcements of the Antalya Governorate and the district governorate.
  • There is no fuel station on the mountain; fill up in Konyaaltı.
  • Take your rubbish with you; Saklıkent neighbors the protected areas of the Beydağları.
  • On the way back, stopping at Doyran for a short break by the reservoir makes a pleasant transition between the day's two seasons.

Sources

Location - A Snow Day in Antalya from Saklıkent to Bakırlıtepe

Trip Info
CityKonyaaltı, Antalya
TypeCultural
DateOctober 15, 2026
SourceRadar Editör
Radar TürkiyeAuthorRadar TürkiyeVisit SourceGet Directions