This weekend for the first time I went snowboarding far away from the ski runs in Bansko. I like snowboarding in the powder snow off-runs, but since I am lazy and hate walking I usually just use the ones that are near ski lifts and require a maximum a 30 minutes walking.This weekend, it was different. Two of my buddies convinced me to go much further from the resort and lifts, with promises of great slopes and perfect powder. I would never have went with them if I knew what kind of trek we were facing, so they had to lie a bit about the length. We started off where the topmost lift of the resort stops – about an hour down of Todorka peak. I knew the trek since I have done it in the summer time, the weather was nice, I was not tired, so the first part was fun.
There were moments when we were walking on a very narrow edge, knowing that a wrong step will cause at least an unpleasant fall for meters:
However the view to the slopes that were expecting us was rewarding so we kept on:
We are closing Todorka peak now, you can see the lift station far in the background:
It was already an hour trek and I was tired, but the view of the first guy that climbed the peak was really making me go forward:
Here is a view from a point where I was really tempted to just drop the trek, but the board on, and go back. I am sorry i did not take the opportunity – the snow was perfect and the slope – great:
We reached Todorka peak and took some rest:
Just to continue the final goal – the next peak, called “Little Todorka” (on the photo in the shadow to the left):
Finally the three of us are ready to start, cutting freash tracks in the untouched powder of Little Todorka peak:
I have no photos for the rest of the adventure, but things turned out pretty ugly. The snow was really heavy and is order to move at all we lost a lot of altitude, so we ended up far below the resort. So even we were exhaused from the 2 hours of trekking, we had to do 2 more hours uphill (in a meter of powder snow) to get back on the ski runs. We reached the ski runs after all the lifts had stopped, the temperature had dropped to about -15 Celsius and about half an hour till dawn.
The aftermath – 4.5 hours of exhausting trekking for 0.5 hours of perfect, dreamy downhill in the powder.
The verdict – its not worth it. I will work harder to earn money for helicopter skiing next time.
