Bansko
BULGARIA
A Ski Trip Worth the Wait
By LYNDI
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
The appeal of skiing in Bansko is obvious – cheap lift tickets, great snow, lifts surrounding an historic village once part of the Roman and Ottoman empires, and fun apres-ski opportunities. What they don’t tell you is how to get to these glorious ski fields. And when there are thousands of anxious and excited skiers and boarders ready to start their day with fresh powder – and only one way up – you know you’ll be in for a wait.
Aaron and I walked the 15 minutes from Staria Komita to Bansko’s lifts, stopping en route to rent skis and boards for a few days. We were in line by 8:23am for the 9am opening of the lifts. But in Bansko, a gondola in town takes you on a 20 minute ride up to the ski resort, so anyone and everyone wanting to ski has to take the same gondola up. Meaning the line stretched out the lift center, around the corner, and started actually going up the hill. The problem wasn’t necessarily the length of the line, but rather the “hidden” line. We soon learned that for every person in front of us, they had at least 5 friends that were eating breakfast nearby, drinking coffee, or in some cases – starting the day out right with an ice cold Kamenitza beer.
But finally – 2 hours later – we were on top of the mountain!
It was beautiful. We first headed to the summit to escape some of the crowds and had gorgeous views of the Pirin Mountains all around us. The snow was like butter and the endless runs gave us plenty of opportunity to explore the slopes. But it didn’t take long for the fog to slowly roll in – before we knew it, we were skiing by sound and feel – often we could hear the novice skiier before they plowed into us or feel that we were headed down a steep cliff before skiing into oblivion – but the conditions definitely worsened as the day wore on. Luckily, Bansko has thought this through and conveniently placed small bars throughout every run, so you can grab a beer, coffee or hot wine while you wait for the fog to clear.
It occurred to us that the same things that attracted us to Bansko would ultimately come back to bite us – the cheap lift tickets attract beginners from all corners of the globe, the great conditions attract anyone escaping Italy and Switzerland’s money-hemorrhaging slopes, and the endless runs are soon filled with ski schools doing really long “pizza-french fry” lines across the entire run.
As we sipped hot wine during one of our breaks, we could watch the comedy of errors play out in front of us – novice snow boarders taking out a family of four, skiiers closely tailing another skiier and inevitably wiping out together, and state-of-the-art quad lifts jerking on and off as people fumble with poles and skis during the boarding process. But it was all part of the fun!
The poor visibility ended our day earlier than we would have liked, but for $20 for a day pass, you can’t really complain. The last run of the day takes you back to the town of Bansko and is at least a mile of “Real Life Frogger” where you have to dart between beginner skiiers falling over or running out of steam, and the inevitable snowboarder who didn’t get enough momentum to carry them all the way back to town.
Teddy and Dinko had a spectacular traditional Bulgarian dinner waiting for us that night. The Staria Komita was built by hand by Teddy’s grandfather and probably has not received too many upgrades since then. It’s a traditional inn with a restaurant on the ground floor and the wood fired stove that keeps the rooms upstairs warm with the heat that emanates through the walls. It was a charming hotel, and the hospitality and traditional dinner to boot added a nice touch. Teddy even dressed in a traditional Bulgarian outfit and set the table with hand painted dishes while Dinko churned out endless cuts of meat in the kitchen. Of course we accompanied it with Bulgarian wine and raika, and finally stumbled into bed early and passed out.
Day 2 of our 3 day ski excursion was similar to the first, except we got in line 7 minutes earlier and only waited 45 minutes instead of 2 hours. Well worth it.
The visibility was a little better but we still got socked in at times. At one point Aaron and I got separated with no chance of finding each other. Without cell phones, we had arranged beforehand to meet at the (literally called) Bla Bla Restaurant midway up the mountain until the other showed up there. I had to wait for Aaron for about 20 minutes, but he eventually showed up! And was actually easy to spot as I could see a snowboarder carving down the mountain with ease – which was a huge departure from the mountain full of newcomers to the sport.
At the end of Day 2, we were just about to start our “pub crawl” home where we planned to stop in at each little bar on the way down for a shared drink, when my knee gave out on me, and I had to basically ski on one leg for the entire mile down to the town. It wasn’t terrible, just slow-going. But that effectively ended our ski trip – since skiing on one leg is not a fun way to spend a day. So our stay in Bansko ended a day early as well, but we had a great run.
All in all, Bansko was one of the top reasons we chose to come to this part of the world. Even though we don’t know any Americans that have traveled that far to ski in Bulgaria, the place is hardly a secret and was teeming with Brits, Greeks, Israelis and Australians (living in the UK). The charming town made an excellent backdrop to great skiing at low prices – so despite the bad visibility and endless beginners slipping and sliding all over the mountain, the snow was great, the runs proved plenty difficult, and the view at the top was unforgettable.
