Beli Iskar and Borovetz
This past weekend I went skiing again at Borovetz. It is my 4th straight weekend of skiing and my 3rd trip to Borovetz. The director of our company invited me and a few other people for the weekend at his house in Beli Iskar – a small village near Borovetz (and one that I visited during the summer). As it turned out, only two of us took up his offer but it worked out well. Victor (the director) picked up Nasco and me early Saturday morning and we drove straight to Borovetz. We were on the slopes around 10am and skied straight through until around 3pm. The snow and weather on Saturday was fantastic. I was a bit worried before I left because I checked two local weather sites – one predicted temperatures of -1C and the other predicted -20C (I noticed Joel’s recent blog rants about unpredictable weather “forecasts” as well). As it turned out, the true temperature was around -7C which, with the sun, made for good skiing conditions.
We skied every trail on the top and right side of the mountain including the “Avalanche”, an open bowl with powder skiing. That afternoon we drove back to Victor’s house in Beli Iskar. His house in located only 200m up the road from the small guest house we stayed at over the summer. The house was small – 2 bedrooms but quite adequate for the three of us. The living room had a large window that looked out at the mountains. Although I’m sure the construction of the house was the standard concrete and brick, the ceiling had wood paneling and wood beams to give more of a “country inn” effect. The floor was also a wood laminate to add to the overall coziness. The house was pretty cold and never entirely warmed up, but we had a big fire going so at least we could stand next to the fireplace if we wanted.
The next morning we woke up early to be at the slopes when the lifts started. Sunday wasn’t quite as nice as Saturday. It was snowing most of the morning. The trails weren’t well groomed the night before and, coupled with the fresh snow, turned most of the trails into mogul fields. I’ll have to say though, after a few hours I had adjusted my skiing so the moguls were actually pretty fun (if tiresome on my legs). We asked at the bottom of the lift why they didn’t send some grooming machines up the trails to flatten out the snow. The lift operator replied that such an idea while skiers were on the slope was absurd. Although, I have grooming done during the day several times at other resorts. On our next run down we met two snowcats coming up the trail to provide some fresh grooming. So much for the lift operator’s words. We skied on Sunday until 1pm or so when we headed back to Beli Iskar to pack up and clean the house before heading out.
To get between Beli Iskar and Borovetz Victor used the most direct route – a small, one lane mountain road. Only a 4-wheel drive could have made this journey. The snow was piled several feet high on each side of the road. The road was plowed, but it was obvious the plow only made one pass as the width of the road was the width of a plow blade. Throughout the 7km journey Victor would point out sections of the road where he has had near accidents or parts that were usually very treacherous. However, the access was great as the road went directly to the parking lot next to the high speed quad.
Another interesting tidbit I learned from Victor (who has been skiing Borovetz for over 20 years) was that, until two years ago, the high speed quad was a T-bar. The 4827m lift with 1046m of vertical rise was a T-bar! That must have sucked – big time. The high speed quad followed the path of the old T-bar so Victor would point out areas that used to be very icy and treacherous – including one spot where a man died from falling off the T-bar and sliding into a pole. I hate taking T-bars for 500m, I can’t imagine taking one for nearly 5km.
Anyway, the trip was great and my leg muscles are sore to prove it.
