TOP TO BOTTOM Lindsey Felch and Jake Ward boot toward the summit of Todorka Peak. Lindsey found a perfectly icy ridge for her first-time sporting crampons, but it provided a nice view at least. All aspects from the top looked incredible. The skiing was audible. Josh Anderson and Jake Ward drop in on a grassy, rocky slope above the town of Melnik. After all, it is a ski trip, and despite sweating their heads off in desertlike conditions, Josh and Jake did technically add one extra day of skiing to their trip—and a likely first descent. 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 Ya-koruda 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 moun-tain. 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 beauti-ful 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. The next day, we skied a vast basin and headed back to town. I GENERALLY BASE my life around the recommenda-tions 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. “I think I can ski that,” Josh said. 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 drip-ping 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, remov-ing their skis at 1,400 feet without a flake of snow in sight. Bulgaria 077
The Ski Journal Volume 13, Issue 3: Page 77
