The Ski Journal • Volume 13, Issue 3 • BULGARIAN BIZARRO: Steamed to Perfection in the Balkans

Dimitar Dimitrov, author of Skiing the Balkans, told me to visit this communist-era bathhouse at the outskirts of Yakoruda. The building’s white concrete facade and chipping lead-based paint disguised its true wonder from the outside world.

Earlier, when we opened the front door, an older Bulgarian babushka and two younger counterparts had stared at me, perplexed. Nothing in the lobby exclaimed, “Best bath in all of Bulgaria.” Immediately, the babushka pointed our female companions—Alexis Machovsky and Lindsey Felch—to a separate side of the building.

It seemed abandoned, like a scene from a zombie movie. The lockers were open and empty, not an ounce of ambience anywhere. A mid-30s, butt-naked, tattoo-laden Bulgarian stopped in front of me. After sizing me up, he introduced himself as a member of the Bulgarian Special Forces.

“Have you been here before?” he asked in a grave accent. “This will be uncomfortable for you at first, but this is the most amazing water on the planet.”

We had spent the last five days in Bansko, Bulgaria’s largest ski resort, which had the bars, ski shops and après scene typical of a westernized resort. Bansko’s 245 acres of terrain is served by a gondola and eight chairlifts. But the idea of skiing there was certainly foreign—who thinks of Bulgaria as a ski destination? Bordering the Black Sea, Turkey, Romania, Macedonia, Serbia and Greece, consider yourself the exception if you do.

The trip was Josh’s idea. His partner, Alexis Machovsky, is Bulgarian. Her sister and grandma live there and have a place in Bansko. There I was in our Tahoe-area home shredding well-documented perfection daily, making goo-goo-gaga sounds and cleaning poop out of my newborn daughter’s diaper when I made the questionalbe decision to buy a Turkish Airlines flight from San Francisco to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

As it turned out, Bansko was having one of its worst seasons to date. It was unseasonably warm and the snowpack was sketchy. The resort’s webcam was far from inspirational. But travel is about more than just skiing—ski travel can simply be a reason to experience something new. And Bansko, which is home to about 8,500 folks, was intriguing.

Bansko lies at the foot of the Pirin Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a relatively small range, but boasts more than 100 peaks over 2,000 meters, glacial lakes, deep forests, waterfalls and wildlife. The region has a rich cultural heritage that can be seen in some of the older villages, wood-carved architecture and the occasional horse-drawn cart. The town itself is quite developed and has seen considerable growth since the addition of a modern gondola in 2003.

When we landed in Sofia in early March, it was warm. Jake was wearing shorts. I made a few half-serious jokes about skiing a couple of days, then hitchhiking to Greece or Albania to hang out on the Mediterranean coast.

As we loaded our van, light rain pitter-pattered on the windshield. Leaving Bulgaria’s capital, the landscape morphed from Soviet-style concrete buildings into low rolling, tree-laden hills. The temperature dropped and sheets of snow turned the hills white, bringing hopes of fresh powder. Although it was snowing, the ground was bare. The air felt springlike. Arriving in Bansko a couple of hours later, we were relieved to find the alpine obscured by clouds. We drove to the Family Hotel Djangal, where the caretaker, George, put us to bed with a shot of homemade moonshine.

The town of Bansko sits at 3,035 feet of elevation—not that high, given the latitude. Yet the resort rises to just over 9,000 feet on Todorka Peak and claimed a few inches of fresh in the morning. A long gondola ride through thick forest took us up to the midstation where we boarded a series of chairs through dense cloud cover. I could hardly see my hands in front of me. Then light began to splinter through the fog and soon the Pirin Mountains unveiled themselves. Todorka was right in front of us, and a series of summits just under 9,000 feet scattered as far as the eye could see. Peaks above tree line rose steeply out of deep, narrow valleys—some were shrouded in storm clouds while other caught rays of sunlight. Below us lay untouched snow.

We set a traverse line and skied the low-hanging fruit just outside the ski area boundary. Though not bottomless, the two or three inches of fresh were a welcome surprise. Each turn sent cold smoke billowing off our skis and jet-lagged legs. It was a pleasant introduction to Bulgarian off-piste.

The next morning, we woke early in hopes of skiing more proper descents off Todorka. Our bags were packed heavy as we repeated what would be a daily routine of walking through the village in ski boots while gorging ourselves on cheesy Bulgarian phyllo dough pastries called banitsa. From there we got our lift tickets and rode the same hour-long series of chairlifts to the top.

The partial plan was to climb Todorka and ski the imposing northeast couloir off the summit. While Josh, Jake, Lindsey and Alexis organized their gear, I struck up a conversation with a local woman. The couloir looked a touch firm for my liking, and I was eyeing up plan B. I decided I would traverse part of the ridge and shoot photos of the crew skiing the couloir, then meet up midslope. The crew passed me on the ridgeline as I watched them navigate a knife ridge at the base of the summit.

As I gathered my gear to move to a better vantage point, the woman hooted at me, “You should go skiing with the four guys approaching you now.”

Four men indeed were approaching and with some basic English and a few hand gestures I asked them, “Is it cool if I ski with you guys?” They dropped the universal head nod of approval and I quickly gathered my gear. I could tell by the direction they were going that it was the zone I wanted to ski. I had been reading Ski the Balkans and was partially familiar with the area but remembered its convoluted nature. The book highlighted repeated warnings about avalanches and exposure.

The guys said very little to me as they dropped in one at a time. Each made precise turns to feel out the snowpack and continued to a safe area below. I traversed the slope and dropped in. The turns were smooth and soft as I sought out an untouched panel to the left and cut steep turns toward my new crew. The group didn’t loiter for long and from there we skied a narrow chute before choosing a perfect hidden traverse line over highly exposed terrain. The snow became a mixture of powder and dust on crust. The terrain was steep to medium-steep, with ribs and chutes sprinkled in.

By the time we reached the bottom, traversed back into the ski area and hopped on the chair back up, we dove deeper into conversations about powder skiing, California, Bulgaria and recent avalanches on the slope we had just skied. By the time the last lift closed, we had laid tracks across the entire slope, accumulating more than 10,000 feet of vert down stunning alpine terrain. It was my first real taste of Bulgarian backcountry skiing, and it was good.

in Bansko, the quaint cobblestoned sections of throwback Bulgarian towns were juxtaposed by a modern, British-dude-shrouded party scene. The white ribbons of sunbaked snow on the lower mountain were bustling with first-time Bulgarian skiers, while jagged peaks looming in the distance taunted us with tales of a sketchy snowpack. Yet we wouldn’t be able to reach them.

Shortly after our two epic ski days, an unruly wind whipped though Bansko. The fresh dustings that made for smooth skiing and easy travel were replaced by a bulletproof surface. With upper lifts closed, we sought out other forms of entertainment. We skinned into thick forests of Bulgarian fir. At lower elevation the wind was nonexistent. Big flakes drifted back and forth like feathers falling from the sky.

After an hour of snaking through the woods the trail led us straight to our destination. Towering out of the winter-scape was an abandoned communist-era structure, completely out of place in the forest. There was a panel of snow that creeped a third of the way up the building’s façade, and it needed to be skied. Jake made it to the top first, made a wonky turn, and more or less stuck the line. Next up was Josh. He had the opportunity to learn from Jake’s line choice and adapt to the terrain. He clicked in, threw a wide, flat-footed jump turn, landed directly on a rivet on the metal roof and tumbled down. It was both glorious and ridiculously funny.

Over the next few days our ski objectives grew shorter. We found ways to make turns, but our attention crept toward cuisine, exploration and spa life. Many nearby villages had hot mineral pools. We’d ski in the mornings, then grab beers and check out a new spa, which were plentifully sprinkled throughout the town. The upscale Kempinski Hotel boasted the best spa in Bansko. Its loungey vibe was all comfort and housed Finnish, herbal and infrared saunas, steam baths, ice baths and hot pools. It was beautifully juxtaposed by the Yakoruda bath, which was old, barren and unfriendly. They both had their charms. Somewhere in the middle was the bath in Dobrinishte. No matter the location, when engulfed in hot water, our conversation always returned to whether we should keep skiing or start traveling. In the end, we decided to head into the backcountry.

Bulgaria is home to an extensive backcountry hut system. While some are primitive, many are large stone structures with rooms, food and hosts. Given the late spring conditions and the lack of snow at low elevation we decided on an easy option.

Bezbog Ski Centre is home to the only Bulgarian-made lift in the country, and served a three-mile ribbon of dirty snow. At the top of the rickety, red, two-person chair is the Bezbog Hut. A few of us neatly packed for the occasion in a compact fashion. The others looked like homeless skiers with shoes, hats, sleeping bags and crampons clipped to various pieces of webbing on the outside of their backpacks. When it came time to board the chairlift we watched in hysterics as the safety bar came down without warning.

After a half hour of hovering through the Bulgarian forest and basking in springtime glory we reached the Bezbog Hut. Built in 1972, the massive hut can sleep 146. It has bathrooms, a restaurant and electricity. We quickly learned the hut was a gathering place for young people. Whether there for ski objectives or simply to chain-smoke cigarettes, it is common practice to spend the night gulping down liter bottles of rakia, a Balkan fruit brandy, under the hut’s moldy ceilings with a disgruntled-yet-jovial staff. At one point, a man walked down three flights of marble stairs in crampons.

The Hut reminded me that we were in distinctly foreign lands. Locals walked the mountains on snowshoes. We threw our skins on and headed for the summit of 8,678-foot Bezbog. Along the way we passed people snow-hiking with boots and crampons. We were the only people skinning up the mountain. At the top we realized that Bezbog was a gateway into the range for any pursuit. Mountains jutted up endlessly in all directions and cast an icy sheen. The previous day’s winds had taken a major toll. Yet it warmed up enough for beautiful corn conditions. The ladies and I caught the tail end of the cycle off the shoulder into a series of steep chutes. We turned around to watch Josh and Jake ski their objectives. It had turned choppy and bulletproof, and they were forced to descend slowly.

I generally base my life around the recommendations of strangers who seem to know what they are talking about. While pounding rakia the night before, a bald, bearded Bulgarian listening to metal suggested we check out Melnik, a quaint town on the border with Greece. With temperatures soaring and visions of homegrown wine, that’s where we went.

Melnik is the smallest town in Bulgaria and is surrounded by 300-foot-tall sandstone formations known as the Melnik Earth Pyramids. Cited as an architectural reserve, many of its buildings are considered cultural monuments. Both the town and its surroundings appear to be eroding in unison. We spent the morning wandering through the old town and stunning hillside landscape. Yet, as hot and snowless as this landscape was, our eyes locked on the slope below.

He was half-serious. For the next 20 minutes we discussed the prospect of skiing two different lines. One was grass-covered and the other was desert dirt and rocks.

Soon, we were skipping back to the van. Then we were dripping sweat and boot-packing ancient steps. A few townspeople had caught wind that some strange Americans were walking the desert streets with skis and stopped to watch Josh drop in on the grassy line. His first turn was smooth. The second sent him head over heels down the embankment. Jake followed suit and greased the line. Then they dropped in tandem into a mixed composite rock and dirt slope just above town, removing their skis at 1,400 feet without a flake of snow in sight.

Photo Caption: Jake Ward blindsided by the automatic safety bar that quickly lowers itself after you load the lone chair at Bezbog in Dobrinishte. The vintage two-seater serves a three-mile run, the Bezbog Hut and incredible backcountry access. You might think you would have your gear trimmed up and tight being a skier from the States, but with shoes dangling and more, Jake was a classic tourist in action.

The Ski Journal - Volume 13, Issue 3

BULGARIAN BIZARRO: Steamed to Perfection in the Balkans

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