Author: james

New toys

  Bansko is having a pretty shitty start to the season this year, poor snow conditions and mild temps mean that there are only a few pistes open and those only because of man made snow. So this is the ideal moment to talk about toys! This year I will finally be going into the […]

Eastern Front

    Season 2013/14 has opened with a bit of a bang. As ever Ulen AD have kept us all hanging on tender hooks with their usual saga of publishing the rates for this winter. So far we have the prices until the 20th of December what the real prices will be we wont know until […]

The little world of Don Camillo

The little world of Don Camillo doesn’t seem to have got across the channel . On the continent it has been a huge part of peoples lives for nearly 70 years. I was introduced to the books by The Old Man and a very strange choice it was to suggest to a teenager. The stories […]

Death in the Afternoon

I’m no pro skier, I’m not sponsored by any manufacturer or filmed on a daily basis as part of one of those tantalizingly extreme films where everyone is skiing in chest deep powder on some remote face in Alaska. I’m just a guy who loves to ride the back country. If it’s un-pisted then that’s […]

Koncheto ridge

02/09/2013 A return to Koncheto it has been nearly a year since I was last on koncheto. For those of you who don’t know this ridge it is the saddle to the right of what looks like the highest mountain in Pirin when you look up from the village. I am not quite sure how butKoncheto has […]

A different sort of training

11/08/2013 A different sort of training, I have just come back from 2 lovely days in the hills with a friend from Sofia, he is a very busy political bee up there and  juggling work and a growing family with what are turning out to be “interesting times” in Sofia has meant we haven’t seen him […]

Avalanche

10/3/2012 first real avalanche of the season this week, a small 25m wide and 200m long number. Spring is definately here changing the snow pack and bringing wet heavy snow. The new snow skis well and Tom and I have been having a great time in it but the fact that it has fallen on a […]

Our little community

17/08/2012 A word on community “ We are a small community here in Bansko. If you stretch the numbers a bit we could be a total of 50 people living here permanently.  Ex-pats and their families dot most of the villages in our region. Our children go to the local schools, we use the local doctors and get […]

Pink Tomatoes

28/08/2013 Pink tomatoes, the seasons turn,the odd shower of rain has cooled Bansko, the days are getting noticeably shorter and the  blackberries with their contrary nature begin their lethargic charge towards autumn. Of all the “important” crops in our life the blackberries are the least stressful, at one and the same time they are one of the most […]

Ponderosa, Mountian biking Bansko

 Mountain biking Bansko For the first day of The Road to Nowhere MTB rally I decided to use a totally different part of our region. Traditionally for events concerning Mountain biking Bansko I have worked variations of established trails on the north side of Pirin. Some sort of mix between Perfect day  and Dead Dog  on day one and […]