Do you see the highest peak behind my snowboard? It is called Kamenitsa and it is our destination today. Europe has many great places for riding and 1st place, of course, is given to all countries which have parts of the Alps. However, if you feel adventurous this year and want to try something else, consider Bulgaria and its Pirin mountain for which I will tell you all about in this post. Here are some reasons to include it on your wish list:
It is beautiful steep mountain
Pirin is covered mainly with granite shaped by glaciation. It has pyramidal peaks, cirques, and vertical cliffs. The landscape is perfect for advanced snowboarders and skiers. But it also possesses certain risks and avalanches are a common occurrence. You can check the below video for an inspiration what is like to be riding there. It is NOT an EPIC ride but it will give you an idea of what the landscape is (:. I climbed that hill, behind the hut we were sleeping in, 6 times before the nice fellow (in the beginning of the video) decided to give me his GoPro and for that reason, I am not having a helmet on my head.
No crowd
If you decide to go to a winter resort in Pirin, there will be a crowd, there will be queues in front of the lifts and also in front of the places to eat. BUT, if you go a little bit outside of the slopes, you will find a very few people. Hence, you can make your own line without having to fight with other people and running to catch the first chairlift (:. There are a lot of reasons behind the absence of riders, but none of them is connected with the quality of the ride you can get. That one will be first class if you are a little bit lucky and know where to go.
Cheap beer
Bulgaria is the cheapest country in the European Union. That means basically everything will be cheaper than in the other Western European countries. Want to enjoy а beer after an amazing day on the snow? You can do it for about 70 euro cents (500ml). And you can do that in a hot spring!
Nice people
The winter sports and especially the ones that could be put together with the word free is attracting open-minded, laid-back people. Bulgarians that you will meet will not be an exception of that type. As a main principle avoiding tourist places will guarantee you won’t meet anyone unpleasant. Most of the young people will speak good English, while the ones above 50 years old could understand some German or Russian.
Last year in the beginning of March I joined a group of people going to Tevno ezero and planning to ride on Kamenitsa peak. It was an organized event and the people organizing it have years of experience in that field. If there is a powder left somewhere in the mountain, they definitely know where it is and will get you to it. I still don’t feel confident enough just to choose a place on my own. For that reason, I and friends of mine decided to trust the professionals. If you are not confident enough yourself you can check them out – Split the Mountain. They will be also able to provide you with avalanche equipment ( transceiver, snow shovel, probe), snowshoes, cats or split board if you want to give it a try. I was the only person in the group which didn’t have a split board and I was quite jealous (and very exhausted) in the end of 5 hours walking in the snow with my 13 kg backpack (snowboard attached).
The itinerary was as follows: 3 days, 2 nights sleeping in one of the remote huts in the mountain, and for that reason one of my favorite ones. Riding in the area and riding on Kamenitsa peak. It is 2822m high and it is quite impressive in all seasons. If you decide to check it online, most of the pictures will be having a lake right next to the hut, which is unfortunately not visible on my video, but you cannot have both lake and snow (:.
You need around 2 hours and a half to reach the foothills of Pirin mountain from Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The first hour you will be driving on a highway and then on a secondary road. Be careful driving there as the locals, knowing well the road, could take some not really necessary risks in order to arrive faster at their destination. We arrived very early in the morning in the town of Dobrinishte. It is 5 minutes away from the biggest and probably most popular winter resort in Bulgaria – Bansko. Dobrinishte has one slope as well. It is a favorite place for many freeriders as it has really nice pine forest where you can ride, but I will tell you about that in another story. The chairlift is running to hut Bezbog where our meeting point was. We did a fast checkup of our gear and started ascending. The trail in summertime takes about 4 hours. In the snow season, it took us more like 6 hours and a half, but we did climb around 70% of bezbog peak in order to have at least one ride that day.
It was quite a hard climb, but the view, in the end, was rewarding; the following two days, also.
We arrived at the hut before sunset and had warm soup and tea. The owner could be there year-round if you have an arrangement. I was really jealous of the snowmobile he was using, anyway, driving such is not allowed for an ordinary people in the National Parks. The second day all of us woke up super excited and after a fast breakfast, we left the hut. We had a short descent followed by a steep climbing which started from the foothills of the peak. We used cats to get to the top. It took us in total 2 hours to get to Kamenitsa.
Everyone had its run and I have to say – that was my best ride that season.
In the afternoon some people went climbing another peak in the area, but I decided to do a few runs on the hill next to the hut without having to carry all the gear from the previous day.
The night at the hut was great. Twenty people were sharing their excitement for the day and all were having really good time. Next morning we decided all together that we have to give another run on Kamenitsa and we went to shred the other part of the powder left. After the job was well done, we went back to the hut to get our baggage and left through another way to Bansko. It was going down most of the time with few flat parts which I hated the most. We were “paddleboarding” with our hiking poles and few hours descending required just a few times to take our snowboards off. We ended up on the slopes of Bansko - a huge group of crazy, great, smiling people. That was the best long weekend I ever had.
Finally, if you like what you have seen and want to help preserve this natural beauty, please help us fight the bad people, who want to cut the trees down: https://makeyourmark.panda.org/pirin
Thank you very much for reading and upvoting. Let it snow, Eva (: