Borovetz: Better than Vitosha
On Sunday I hit Borovetz ski resort. Borovetz is one of three major ski resorts in Bulgaria – the other two being Bansko and Pomporovo (notice Vitosha is not in that list). I was up late the night before for Paris’ birthday party, but I was able to rally for a half-day of skiing. Shelly was kind enough to drive me out there.
Borovetz is just over an hour away from Sofia but the road winds through a mountain pass and is riddled with large potholes making the ride somewhat of an adventure. The way to Borovetz passes through Samokov, a reasonably sized town that we had seen on our summer excursions and is known throughout Bulgaria for their potatoes. All through the year you see people selling bundles of potatoes on the side of the road.
We arrived at Borovetz around 12:30pm. There aren’t any large parking lots at the base – only a collection of small ones. We were able to find a spot in a lot right next to the gondola. Shelly was able to park where she could easily get out, but the rest of the lot had cars packed in such that the cars in back would have to wait for the front cars to leave before they could get out – a la Red Sox parking. Although still cheap, Borovetz is much better at understanding market pricing as we paid 10 BGN to park on what was essentially a mound of snow on the edge of the parking lot.
As with yesterday, we were quickly approached by some skiers coming off the mountain looking to sell their lift tickets. Half day tickets at Borovetz cost 15 BGN (~$10). I bought one of the guys tickets for 10 BGN. The lift tickets at Borovetz are much more professional looking. They have a map of the mountain on one side and the other side has the type of ticket, date and a bar code at the bottom. All the lifts have a bar code scanner that you need to insert your lift ticket into before the turnstile will let you onto the lift.
Anyway, my lift tickets worked fine and I took the gondola up to the top. I spend a couple hours skiing around the top. All the lifts at the top were Poma lifts, but could pull up 2 rows of skiers at a time and seemed in much better shape that the ones I saw at Vitosha. Still, they were Poma lifts which are kind of a pain. One of them had an exciting ride up due to large mounds of snow along the lift line you were pulled over – much like the lift at Vitosha.
After a bit at the top I went over to the west side of the mountain where there were two good long trails that both ended at a high speed quad. This side of the mountain was great. The snow was good and the trails were well groomed. The lift was in good condition. Basically, this was the “US style” ski resort I wanted. The high speed quad was open until 4:30pm so despite only skiing for a “half day” I was able to catch one of the last chairs up and ski until 4:45pm or so. Only at the end of the day did some icy patches start to appear on the trails.
Now, the end of the day brought another annoying part. The only way back to the town from anywhere on that side of the mountain is a pain in the arse – even more so if you’re stuck at the bottom of the quad lift after it’s closed. From the bottom of the quad I had to take off my skis and hike up a road for 200m or so where you intersect with the main trail back to town from the west side of the mountain. Here you put back on your skis and ski down the hill until the trail flattens out. Then, you essentially have to cross country ski for 400m through woods to get back to the base. The last thing I want to do after a day of skiing is push myself on flat snow with downhill skis. There were other options. There was a line of taxis next to the quad willing to take you back to the town (which was less than 1km away) for 10 BGN. This is the US equivalent of paying $50 to have someone drive you to the end of the block. Needless to say I didn’t see anyone take a taxi. There were also horse carts that would take you back, but they were 15 BGN. The downside is that the horse carts took the ski path back, so not only did you have to cross country ski, you had to avoid horse poop that was all over the trail.
With the exception of that last trail, the resort was great – especially for the price. I basically skied for over 4 hours at a good resort for a mere $6. The interesting thing to note is the pricing scheme at Borovetz. A full day pass for the weekend was 30 BGN (~$20). A full day pass for a weekday was 50 BGN. It was over 60% more expensive to ski during the week than during the weekend, which is basically the opposite of every ski resort I had ever been to. We reasoned that during the week the resort was mostly foreigners on week-long trips who could afford the higher prices while the weekends were mostly Bulgarians. Just by listening to people talk at the lifts and in town I would say that around 50% of the clientele were British. Bulgaria in general is a pretty popular ski destination for Brits. In fact, we stayed in town for dinner and I was able to watch the end of the Chelsea-Charlton football match – as several of the restaurants had SkySports.
I look forward to getting out again soon, although the temperature here just dropped to -15C so I won’t be doing any skiing until that changes.
