My director’s house is in Dragalevski which is one of the neighborhoods “on the mountain” (Vitosha mountain is on one side of Sofia and several neighborhoods are on the side of it). The houses “on the mountain” are for the most part pretty exclusive. Most diplomats and ambassadors live in one of the three neighborhoods on the mountain. However, the infrastructure doesn’t really fit the house quality. The only way to get to my directors house, for example, is to drive down a small dirt alley. The houses on each side of the alley are small mansions (in fact, an ambassador lives next door to my director), but the alley is crap. Many of the houses on the mountain are located down crappy little dirt roads that turn to mud pits in the rain and are nearly inaccessible in the snow.

Anyway, back to the jam session. The session consisted of about 12 people. Three of us brought our guitars and one of the guys brought an assortment of hand-held percussion instruments. The real highlight of the jam session was a guy named Vlado who is friends with one of my coworkers. Vlado has a lot of energy. Vlado also knows a lot of songs, but only the chorus and maybe one verse from any of them. This does not stop or even slow Vlado down. He knows a song should be about 3-4 minutes so he will sing the chorus and the one verse over and over again until he is satisfied the song has gone on long enough. Before anyone has a chance to suggest or even start another song Vlado has already started playing his next song. However, since there was plenty of alcohol to drink no one seemed to mind singing one verse over an over. Eventually Vlado slowed down a bit and Nasco and I were able to squeeze in some songs.

The night finally ended around 3:30am. After a full day of skiing and a full night of partying I slept very well for a good 10 hours that night.

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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.

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The top of the high speed quad lift. You can see the town of Samokov behind the lift supports.

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Vitosha Mountain is in the distance. Just on the other side of this mountain is Sofia.

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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.

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