What is the very shittiest place you've skied and why?

[Roo]

I'll kick things off with BOROVETS in Bulgaria.

Outdated lift system, locals trying to rip you off, corrupt police, groomers that end in the forest with no return lifts, worst quality rental gear I've ever seen, a mountain top covered in gorse bushes with next to no open off piste, dense trees down low that form a canopy so little snow gets through, gun-toting shell-suit clad henchmen, horse-drawn carts that leave a trail of shit everywhere, woeful sanitation, patchy electricity supply, two-bit whores in every hotel lobby, the worst of French apartment architecture, no steep terrain and grim, grim food.










Bulgarian garlic bread


Never eat anything from a Bulgarian menu with the word 'mystery' or 'surprise' in the title.

[f2f]

ahh, there's no place like home!

worst for me are blackstrap and table mountain in saskatchewan. not for the same reasonс you cite, but because living in the prairies for 4 years puts a dent in a skier's soul:



also, re: bulgaria, please notе that every TR and photo I have put here has been from the backcountry. even bulgarians dislike the current conditions of their resorts. for a balanced and more recent view on the topic, check out this NY Times article:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/12/02...2bulgaria.html

i apologize for dragging on this, but bulgaria is where i'm from.

[4matic]

Timberline lodge.

[Roo]

also, re: bulgaria, please notе that every TR and photo I have put here has been from the backcountry. even bulgarians dislike the current conditions of their resorts. for a balanced and more recent view on the topic, check out this NY Times article:

That's a fair point. Some of the backcountry terrain in other spots does look extremely good and I did last visit Bulgaria in '94 so things may have improved since then in Borovets. I'm not going back to find out though.

[Benny Profane]

We need pictures of the two bit whores.

[philippeR]

Grim food ? Coming from a brit, that's really frightening...

I have a distant memory of arriving in Villars de Lans with my parents (I was maybe 10 years old, maybe less) in an unfinished hotel, in the noise of pneumatic drills... and without any snow in sight. They opened the hotel and took resevations in a building still in construction.
We quickly packed the car again and headed up to Argentières.

Edit : Yes, that's not a briliiant story...
I guess I've no really bad memories of ski. I 've always managed to have fun. I must have been lucky.

[booner]

I skied somewhere in Missouri once when I was 18 or so. The ticket was like 50 bucks and it had about 300 vert with one way down...

[Tectonically_Neglected]

Grim food ? Coming from a brit, that's really frightening...

LOL

I'm putting my bet on the Skidome in Zoetermeer, with some scottish resort coming in a distant 2nd.

[haydukelives]

but why were you guys there? especially in winter? just cuious

[Roo]

Grim food ? Coming from a brit, that's really frightening...

That is very true. I remember seeing food being picked up from the kitchen floor and being put back on plates, fried chicken that was clearly pigeon, bread rolls that were out in the buffet for a whole week, and orange juice that was diluted to transparency being dispensed from an orange-tinted plastic hopper. IT made the worst British motorway service station look like the Ritz.

[philippeR]

C'est kloug.

[Jim S]

Squaw

Small, you get bored with the terrain so fast, no vertical, totally novice double green terrain that a 4 year-old blind skier could master, no good skiers to challenge to you a new level of ability. Just the pits.

[BenWA]

Place: Blue Mountain, PA.
Reason: It sucked.

[Vihren]

and I did last visit Bulgaria in '94 so things may have improved since then in Borovets.

Ahh.. things did change since 94 in Bulgarian ski resorts, mostly in the direction of building more of everything. Resorts are rapidly expanding, new ski slopes appear in national parks, picturesuqe alpine villages are turned into concrete megapolises, hordes or package tours Englishmen, Germans and Russians roam the streets of Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo in search of cheap beer and friendly locals... Basicly the mafia ( Russian, Bulgarian, Italian, Ukranian, English) are fucking up our mountains and using ski resorts to make easy money..
On the good side of things, backcountry skiing is not very popular here, major parts of the Rila and Pirin mountains are still unskied by anyone, so as long as you stay away from places like Borovets and Bansko and you come here in a good winter, you might have the chance to have a whole mountain range just for you and your friends to ski on. What can I say.. just check out any random gallery on the website of BEFSA ( bulgarian extreme and freestyle skiing association).. basicly we are the only people that ski in the places you can see there... http://befsa.com/?q=image&lang=en
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showt...8&highlight=TR

[GrizzlyFD]

Blue mountain...that's nothing...at least they have 1000 vert. I grew up 45 minutes from craigmeur in NJ. I think it had 200vert. It closed some time ago and they made the ski slopes into a picnic ground!!

[lemon boy]

It's pretty much a tossup between Keystone and Breck. I dunno, copper should probably be in there too.

[BigDaddy]

Angel Fire, NM:

Lift shut down for about an hour while we got blasted w/ m90 mph gusts in 10 degree weather. Then, they wouldn't let us in the lodge because we were brown bagging it. (Not to mention there were a lot of Texas accents chirping in the backround...) I never need to go there again.

[Binky]

Yagoo Valley, RI

Considering that the highest pt. in RI is barely over 500 ft., it shouldn't be any kinda shocker that this mtn is not so good.

[Lone Star]

(Not to mention there were a lot of Texas accents chirping in the backround...) I never need to go there again.

Howdy BigDaddy. Stay east of the Mississipp' and y'all won't have to worry too much about the Texan accents. ya hear?

[iceman]

It's been a while and Intrawest bought it and put some money into it since then, but Snowshoe WV gets my vote.

There's basically only two slopes, it's in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but it's the closest "major" resort to the South, so it's full of drunken totally out-of-control rednecks flying around and throwing beer cans and spitting tobacco from the lifts and a-hootin' and a-hollerin' as they head straight for you at Mach Looney.

Good times, good times.

[BigDaddy]

Howdy BigDaddy. Stay east of the Mississipp' and y'all won't have to worry too much about the Texan accents. ya hear?

I know... how obnoxious of me. The worst Texan is actually a New Englander .... Bushman.

[deeppo]

Hunter-Ive skied smaller resorts but hunter has to be the worst ski resort in the US. Bad snow, crappy runs and the worst skier on the planet

Vail- Yea it could be worse but Vail sucks. The mountain is flat, the backbowls are a joke.
Deeppo

[Jim S]

Vail- Yea it could be worse but Vail sucks. The mountain is flat, the backbowls are a joke. Deeppo

+ 1

I was at Vail last year and was pretty disappointed by the off-piste offerings or lack thereof.

[orlowskij]

My current closest hill, Tussey Mountain, PA. 1 extremely slow lift, 3 ways down.

[alto]

I'm still p-texing.