Beldersay Skiing

Despite the novelty of living less than 90 minutes from a chic ski resort with a fast gondola and high-speed quad, weekends at Amirsoy leave a lot to be desired. Purchasing tickets and, if you are in need rental gear, are not unlike participating in the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. 

Lines be damned! Masks, what are those? Need a size 8 boot? TOO BAD because the oligarch wearing seal fur and spandex in front of you just took the last pair. You can't rely on credit card machines working, or cashiers having proper change. If you don't have what they need, that's on you! Next, skid, scrape, and scramble your way up to the gondola before the swarm of socks and sandal clad selfie taking grannies get there! Still on course? You still gotta ski down the streaky brown ribbon of death, where braking and turning have NO place. 

The desire to ski beckoned, especially after our gleeful and socially conscious experience of skiing in the Spanish Pyrenees, but we weren't willing subject ourselves to such melee. So we opted to drive a few minutes further along the R12 to ski at Beldersay which operates a pay-as-you-go, 2-person chair lift with wooden seats. Each ride costs 25,000 som/adult, and 15,000 som/child, or $2.30 and $1.40. The ride takes 24 minutes and there is essentially one ski run. Most visitors get a blanket for their laps and then wander around the top, admiring the view and dodging the single-person sleds that inevitably have 3 or 4 piled on. 

There were only a few skiers out, so we pretty much had the run to ourselves, which included 6-8 inches of recently fallen snow. The kids learned what their quads were truly capable of as they were forced to make big turns to avoid crashing into powder and subsequently having to dig themselves out. Me too for that matter - I see extra squats and wallsits in my future. 

Beldersay Sport Base

Updated prices.

No parking lot. Just the side of the road.

Safety feature.

Staying warm.

Street meat, tea, gloves, sunglasses at the base.