Ski Sunday it wasn't!
Last Sunday I returned from a week-long ski-trip to Borovets in Bulgaria. Seven of us flew out of Dublin to a place called Plovdiv. It was slightly disconcerting when we touched down to spot the numerous military helicopters parked beside the runway plus a few ground missile launchers! What’s more when the luggage conveyor belt started up, the lights in the terminal dimmed!

It was a 2-2½ hour transfer to the resort and it was a bit concerning to see no sign of any snow whatsoever until we hit the resort and even in the resort it was a bit scarce, but we were assured that there was plenty of snow on the mountain. On our first two days of skiing after that temperatures reached about 19˚ and the sun was splitting the trees (unusual according to the Bulgarians for this time of year) but then in the couple of days following that about 8 inches of snow fell which was good. This was what the nursery slop in the middle of the resort looked like without much snow:

So the skiing…well it was my first time ever bar a couple of sessions on the dry slope at Craigavon a few years ago, but to be honest I really didn’t get the hang of it. Three of us were in the same ski school class of 8 people (one of whom included a guy from Donegal Canoe Club so we talked about paddling most of the week!) whilst the other 4 were in an intermediate class. The first couple of days I got on grand but we got really frustrated by the slushy snow and the queue for the drag lift (see pic above) and we didn’t feel that our ski instructor was teaching us enough.

However in the following couple of days we got the chance to go up the mountain and try another run. Queues for the lift were bad up there too – on the Tuesday we only got 5 goes down the run in the space of about 4 hours (including a break for lunch). That afternoon I started to get really frustrated because my snowploughs just weren’t happening – I kept losing control especially on steeper sections of the run and was praying nobody would end up in my path! The next day the gondola was closed in the morning because of high winds so most of our group decided to have a rest day. But at lunchtime I was so frustrated that I was determined to try and get something right so I kept going and the weather improved so we got up on the mountain. And actually a few things began to click and I kind of figured out what my knees were meant to be doing so I got on better and was enjoying it a lot more. After our ski lesson some of us decided to do an extra bit of the blue run we’d been doing that afternoon. This involved going down what appears on the map to be a green run running alongside a red run to a drag lift which would take us a bit higher up the mountain to join the blue run a bit higher up. The run down to this lift was hilarious, not funny haha, but funny lets-go-into-hysterics-‘cos-it’s-so-flippin’-steep! I had a spectacular fall – both skis came off, but I was totally fine and was laughing my head off. I had just forgotten the whole concept of zigzagging down the mountain and had ended up blasting down somewhat out of control. Anyway we made it to the drag lift which earlier in the week my friends in the other ski class had nicknamed ‘The Violator’ – ‘nuff said! So then we got to do the extra bit of the blue run which was really great and I finished the day with a good sense of achievement.
Blue run on the top of the mountain

On the Thursday our instructor (who incidentally had been in the Bulgarian alpine skiing team for 5 years) took us down a 6km green run which was really picturesque. Unfortunately because of the lack of snow and also because the fresh snow from the previous night hadn’t gotten pressed, our skis kept getting ‘sticky’ and there were places were it was easy to get stuck in a rut or trip over a pine cone, so it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing down the run, but it was something different. We got up on the mountain in the afternoon and did the extended version of the blue run again so that was a pretty good day.
Adam's snow-angel

But unfortunately the Friday was my worst day of skiing. I think I maybe got out of the wrong side of the bed. The gondola was closed again because of high winds on the top of the mountain so we were restricted to slopes down in the resort which was disappointing. We went to a fairly steep blue run which I’d already attempted earlier in the week and kept falling so when I got off the drag lift at the top I just was not feeling good about it, the steepness just freaked me out and I knew I was going to end up out of control…so of course I fell and when I got to the bottom I pretty much took a moody cow fit and decided to just side-step up the slope a bit instead of going all the way to the top. Unfortunately for me this was the morning that our ski instructor decided to pull out her video camera to record us so that she could flog a dvd to us. I tried going down the slope again from the top of the lift but fell again, looked up and the camera was still on me – man I was ready to wrap my ski pole round her neck! I definitely had a sense of humour failure! After lunch the gondola opened so we headed up the mountain to do the blue run again, but by the time we got up there the winds had increased and we were skiing in blizzard-like conditions, it was fierce! I really didn’t enjoy the green/red run bit, I just had lost all confidence. In any case we only had the chance to do the blue run once before the gondola was closed because of the winds.

That probably all sounds rather negative from my perspective but the seven of us did have a lot of craic together. We weren’t exactly party animals in the evenings (in bed by 10.30 most nights!), sometimes staying in the hotel to play table tennis and pool rather than going out somewhere. Borovets has a reputation for being cheap and cheerful but actually a bottle of coke could set you back nearly £2 some places. Those of our group in the intermediate class had a great instructor who took us all to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant in the next town one evening and we had a really good meal. Bulgarian salads are great – their tomatoes are so much better than the flavourless ones you get here, and they’re big into feta cheese which was really tasty.

Would I go skiing again? Mmm, the jury is out on that one. I’d rather spend my money on kayaking trips, I guess it’s ok if you can afford to ski 2-3 times a season, then you’d see some progress, but I just got frustrated with queuing and intimidated by everyone else swooshing down the slopes with ease and elegance! I also couldn’t get ski boots to fit right – I’ve got odd feet so the toes in one foot ended up a bit squashed and actually a week later I still don’t have proper feeling back in them, they’re still a bit numb! But sure I’ve finally had the chance to try a ski holiday and overall it was a great experience.
View going down on the gondola