Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Started early last Saturday with a trip to Gatwick, and an effortless flight to Sofia, just under 3 hours. Hopped on a coach, meeting many interesting people, including Gubby and his Family, (Chris, very nice to meet you all) 4 hours later, arrived in a very snowy pamps, the snowiest I have ever seen!

The usual mad dash to get unpacked and get to the bar as soon as possible ensued, a few hours later we were on the bus to Ski Depot 2 to meet Maria Gogova, and the team in Ski room 3 kitted us out and outside ready for the first run to the 3 man chair!

After a big queue (about 30 minutes) for the chair we were finally on our way to the top, all the memories came flooding back, the stunning scenery, the snow capped trees, shame we couldn't see it, we could barely see the chair in front!

After an enjoyable day skiing, we skied off the mountain to the depot, and off to Markony's to meet some more posters from BGSki.com.
Snowtox, Sandy, Tequila, Mark, Richard, Sarah, Fattily Natalie, Gemma, Bobski & Tomba, Essex Elaine, Steve and and all the others who appeared sorry if I forgot your names!

We went on to have a great day skiing on Monday, with horizontal snow coming at us most of the day, it carried on into the night followed by the same sort of thunder storm that Banknote had 2 or 3 weeks back!

On Monday night the BGSki Posters party, was a bit of a blowout, Slippery Sam Trevor, Gubby & Family, Essex Elaine, Steve & All, Jane, JueH and any others who showed up, it was nice to meet you. I know The snowtox crew had their own problems trying to sort out Tomba, and it was good to meet you in Markony on Sunday.

On Tuesday morning Jim and I hopped on to the 1 man chair to mid station as the 3 man chair was down from a lightning strike, after a few stops we skied back to malina area, to find a massive 2 hour queue for the 1 man chair, which eventually closed because of power cuts, then the whole mountain was shut down, so an afternoon playing cards and drinking was called for!

Wednesday started with us looking out to find more fresh snow, with the forecast for more all day, in fact more for the rest of the week.... we saw very little sunshine for the resort which is supposed to be the sunniest in Bulgaria.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the "Chicken Run" which is a continuation of the green/blue from top station, which came out at the side of The Brothers restaurant, great jump, everyone should try it! (by the way, Delboy told me the Brothers was more than twice as expensive as last year!!)

We went to the Chinese restaurant, which we all loved, We cannot recommend it enough!

The ski instructors are saying that the snow is the best they have seen in 15-30 years, depending on which one you ask, with snow cover over 2 meters all over the mountain, anyone going soon will have an absolute ball.

Now the critism, in our opinion the resort was really lacking without the white hart pub. Staff were not as welcoming as have been in previous years, although, once you make the effort to chat with them, they do open up. The queues for the lifts were too long, I know the weather had a lot to do with it, but 25-30 minutes average on the 3 man chair was too too much!

Apart from all that, we all had a fantastic holiday, and my kids can't wait to go back!

Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Ally

PS, anyone who is a member of my group will be able to view my pictures very soon!

Ally

Great report and good to meet up with you and some of the other posters.

The skiing was fantastic, but I think it is worth mentioning that whilst there was loads of snow, the final stages of the green run into the ski depot became a skating rink by late afternoon, so much so that the less experienced skiers were often choosing to go down on the one man chair. I do believe that some more maintenance of that area during the day could improve the condition of the piste in that area and allow skiers of all levels to complete the run with confidence.

When the 3 man lift was down on Wednesday, it really did demonstrate the limitations of Pamps. Half term week is busy at the best of times, but to only have the single man chair for that many people was a nightmare.

By the way, when that storm was blowing on the Tuesday, we were stuck at the mid station until about midday when our instructor (Ivan - alias Sly Stallone) decided we should go half way up the Wall to practice some "up hill and parallel turns" made even more exciting by the fact that the electric storm was at it's fiercest, right over-head and the wind was strong enough to blow my daughter over! We stayed out for about 90 minutes in that until the power to the tow also went out.

I hope the broken bottle at Gatwick wasn't too expensive!

Gub

Hi Ally & co.

Looked in BJ's on the Monday but couldn't see the BG Ski sign were you right at the back ? . Got caught up at the bar and that was the end of that. Hope you had a great party. I was with you all in spirit !

You were lucky to get up to the top on Tuesday. We were in Ski Depot 1 and the lift was not running so they cancelled skiing for the day. On Wednesday our lift wasn't working so after getting all our gear and waiting an hour for a bus we travelled to Malina to arrive just before 11 just in time to join the back of the 2- 3 Hour queue for the one man chair. I gave up and hit the chocco brandies until at last the 3 man lift opened about an hour later.

Seeing as we didn't ski at all on Tuesday we thought that we might be entitled to some piste closure insurance but Pamporovo PLC have issued a form which states that they compensated the loss of skiing by providing extra tuition hours. It seems a bit of a cheek to me ( after losing half a days skiing on another day as well) but there you go.