Dead Leg III - Heaven had no Ski Lifts

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Heaven had no ski lifts.
Heaven had no piste maps, queues or cafes.
But Heaven did have a dull, groaning, grinding Bulgarian Army Tank.

It was a roaring metal dragon that broke the silence of the dark green forest with its black smoke fumes and crunching tracks that clunked and bashed through the foot-deep snow.

Perelik Mountain - March 1997

(part I - Dead Leg (1))
(part II - Dead Leg II - Map to a Secret Snow Paradise)

Heaven lies on the border of Bulgaria and Greece in the Rodopi mountain range, once a part of the Iron Curtain and a strategic point for the former communist countries. This is why there is an army base on the highest of the mountains, known as Golyam Perelik (2,191 m) with large guns pointing at the neighbours, Greece.

These mountains have been worn away by the elements over thousands of years and are more rolling and curvaceous than their angular Alpine brothers. In a great geographical twist, the nearby Aegean Sea sends warm, wet air northwards to crash into the Rodopis, dropping fresh, crisp snow and blanketting the slopes, the trees and the guns of the Bulgarian Army in a beautiful, deep, dry powder, perfect for snowboarding.

This is why we had come here - deep powder in an untouched wilderness.
Heaven.
But with big guns.

Our local contact and fellow snowboarder, Dancho had warned us with his usual seriousness about this place.
We would bribe the guards a dollar a day to be on the mountain, effectively trespassing on a strategic Army Base, and we would stay in a hut that would be normally used for visiting officers.
We must not be seen by any high ranking officers, and we must leave if anyone told us to.
We take our own food and stay away from the other soldiers.
We must be careful, especially at night, for there are wild bears and wolves here.
But it wasn't the guns, the wolves or the sub-zero conditions that would be the danger... that turned out to be our own stupidity that turned Heaven into a small slice of Hell...

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The four of us, Oli, Kiwi John, Nic and myself waited on the road until Dancho had cleared it with the guards on the gate. Eventually we were given the all-clear and we began trudging up a long lane between two thick walls of dark fir trees. The snow was piled up waist high on either side and was fresh. We dumped our packs in a wooden hut set back fom the road and then we heard the Dragon growl.

Out on the track was the Tank - a big square box of green metal with chunky tank tracks and a vent near the back that was chugging black fumes into the white snow. There was no long gun pointing out of the front, but this was a heavy, plodding piece of military machinery - no frills, no politeness, just all grunt.

'Jump on!' shouted Kiwi John, and poked his snowboard in though a hatch on the top.
There was no place to sit inside so we found a handhold to grip or a ledge to wedge a boot and this Dragon groaned into life, the grinding tracks could easily crush a loose foot or a stray hand
'Hold on tight!'

The haul to the top took at least half an hour and we were all numb from tank-hugging. The clouds had closed in, destroying any views so we took off straight away.
Immediately i knew this was unlike any snowboarding I had done before.

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We sailed down across huge expanses of untouched, fluffy powder. Each of us took it in turns, following the others but never once crossing our tracks.
Dreamlike.

Powder riding is unlike riding on a piste. Physically, its more like surfing with a long, gliding movement holding the nose of your board up and steering with the tail.
The speed is different too, much faster and although you are moving gracefully, your brain must react quicker as you cover so much ground.
If you stop in powder you sink in and get covered in heavy chunks of snow, and getting started again is a nightmare, whereas on a piste you just point your nose and let gravity do the work.

The sun came out letting us see the fields and gulleys ahead of us. The person upfront would signal to the others which direction to take and where to zoom into and we would all keep each other in view, regrouping and pushing onto the next drop.

Mount Perelik's gentle curves meant there was undulating hills of snow and soft scoops which would you could easily sink into if you stopped. Chest deep, even shoulder deep snow meant digging and hauling yourself, more like swimming than walking. We found our rythem and cruised and carressed the mountain again and again, learning the speed and texture of the slopes.

She was a forgiving mountain. Cliff drops of ten or 20 feet would be met on the other side by a soft pile of snow and we carved sharp lines into the sides of slopes without fear of 'cutting' small avalanches.
We smiled, we cheered, we were in Heaven.

An hour long run would end in a gulley below our hut. Tired and soaked but with huge grins on our faces we would spend another hour to dig our way through the deep slopes to reach The Tank again, to be carried to the top again.

I would call this something cheesy like 'the ultimate off-piste adventure' but there wasn't any piste to ignore. This was Bulgarian back-country, with a tank to take us to the top.

The tank was driven and maintained by two young soldiers doing their national service - Cotsa and 'Knifeboy'. Cotsa bought us occasional bowls of pasta and was genuinely thrilled to see four, living westerners and four snowboards. Knifeboy didnt say much but spent most of the time whittling pieces of wood into sharp points with a big knife.
At night we would try and warm up and play cards together in our officers hut - not that it was luxurious or glamourous. Five heavily-blanketted beds in one room with a wood burner in the corner, with twee, aged pictures on the walls. The intermittant electricity supply was so weak that we once put a saucepan on the stove to boil water and 20 minutes later the water was frozen. After a hard day riding and digging ourselves out, there was no hot water for washing or shaving.
So we didn't wash or shave much.
The freezing outside long-drop toilet was an icey hazard at night, and the threat of curious bears stopped late night visits. But every night the snowflakes would fall, blocking the windows of our hut, covering our tracks and laying fresh piles everyday, creating a fresh heaven every morning.

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We lost track of how many days we spent on Mount Perelik. She bamboozled our young male minds with her sexy curves, days passed in her soft embraces and we fell asleep every night, satisfied and dazed.

Maybe five, maybe six nights passed.
We even managed to persuade Cotsa to let us drive the tank - trying to control ten tonnes of metal with two levers while being deafened and peeping out through hole the size of a letterbox into a flat, featureless whiteness expanse is not an easy task!

Perelik was Heaven.
But she is still a mountain, and mountains, like women, should always be respected.
They have moods and can be unpredictable.
You should never guess her mood, and always ask her permission.
And in an argument, she always wins.

After a week of reckless snowboarding on the mountain, we thought we knew her, we thought she was our friend, even our lover... but Perelik was ready to bite back.

And she chose me.

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Part IV coming soon....the one where I consider dying in the wilderness... when The Tank comes to my rescue.

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Photos

MT-LB personnel carrier
of the type that was shipping goods, troops and the occasional snowboarder up and down Mount Perelik.
Note the handgrips and tank tracks - beats your heated chairlift anyday...
courtesy of the Department of Defense

The Rodopis
Somewhere near Perelik, many years later, just to give you a feelling. we didnt take many photos while we were there....
courtesy of Zaphodx via panaramio