Bakuriana, Georgia, is a Modern, Affordable Ski Resort

I gave up skiing in my early teens for what I can now admit were pretty stupid reasons. I didn’t like the clothes—sweaty base layers weren’t my idea of a good time—and I couldn’t abide the cold. I continued going on my family’s annual ski trips to Killington, Vermont, but let them enjoy the slopes without me. While they were exploring increasingly difficult runs, I would curl up with adventure books back at the resort.

These stories of people risking life and limb in exotic environments eventually had their intended effect, redirecting my attention to the mountains, but by then it was too late. I’d grown up and was living on my own. Ski trips weren’t the sort of thing I turned down anymore. Instead, I scrambled to figure out how to afford them. I looked into it one winter, but in the U.S., the whole thing, from travel to ski rentals to lift passes, seemed impossibly expensive. So I resigned myself to accepting a stroll on an icy day as sufficient winter exercise.

My prospects of returning to the sport improved just over a year ago, when I felt the last stretch of warm weather slip away while traveling in the Caucasus in November. I’d rented a little cabin by the Black Sea in Georgia, but there was only one day when it was sunny enough to go swimming, so I mostly stayed in and wrote. The last time I’d visited the country, it had been the height of summer, perfect weather for bathing, hiking, and sniffing around vineyards. What was there to do in winter?

The lingering seagulls offered no ideas, so I caught a minibus inland to the spa town of Borjomi. Built as a resort for 19th-century nobility, the town still has plenty of stately vistas, particularly striking after a snowfall. At Cafe Iggy, over a Chicken Shkmeruli that kept me warm and cozy, I realised how appropriate Georgian food is in frosty weather. I took a couple of brisk hikes around the town, but still couldn’t shake that languid feeling that clings to resorts of this vintage.

Then, looking up from Borjomi, I saw snow-covered mountains and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, remembered what they were for. I caught a minivan up the mountain to the village of Bakuriani. People have been skiing there since 1932, but it has avoided the frustrating trapped-in-amber quality that soured me on Borjomi. I booked an Airbnb right next to the cable car lift and ski rental shop, which is about a half-hour walk from where the minibus dropped me off in the center of town, and broke a sweat duck-walking up the snowy hill.

Catching my breath on my apartment’s balcony, I watched the day’s last skiers come down the mountain. I hadn’t known what to expect, but it was a modern ski town, down to the shiny new gondolas, standard in every way except that it’s much more affordable than its American counterparts. The daily total for my apartment, gear rentals, and a lift ticket came to around $60.

If my problem with skiing before had been the clothes, I was in luck this time: I didn’t have any of the essentials. Still, I wasn’t about to splash out for snow pants that I didn’t have room to carry. Besides, wasn’t there something chic about skiing in jeans?

Layers, I decided, would be my salvation. I put sweatpants on over long underwear and jeans over the sweatpants. I wore a t-shirt, my warmest sweatshirt, a puffer jacket, and a regular fall jacket. The zipper on the top jacket tore a gash in the bulging puffer, which I taped up. I shimmied one pair of socks over another and was ready to go. I can’t say I had the greatest range of motion in this get-up, but it was warm enough, and there’d be plenty of padding when I fell.

As the cable car swung in the wind on my first trip up the mountain, I imagined the worst results of flinging myself downhill on skis. What if my shins splintered? My legs snapped? My neck broke? My backbone jumped a couple of feet sideways? Healthcare was cheaper in Georgia, too, but it wasn’t free, and there are certain conditions doctors can’t fix. Would it be worth it for a few days of skiing?

I texted my brother, who had kept up the habit, and he assured me it was like riding a bicycle; all muscle memory. I doubted him throughout my first run, gingerly inching down the mountain, frequently stopping to steam off anxiety and pose an obstacle for more confident skiers. On my second run, my confidence rose, and I started to enjoy myself. The third time, I was flying, wind singing in my ears, out of my head, totally unencumbered. I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening negotiating with myself for “one more run.”

Around sunset, I tore myself away and crawled back to the apartment for a shower. After drying off and sitting down until the walls stopped swimming, I walk-slid a few minutes downhill to the simply named restaurant Georgian Flavor. Its menu of national standards matched that of dozens like it across the country, but its straightforward execution, modest prices, and convenient location kept me coming back day after day. My memories of particular meals have been overwritten by the ravenous après-ski hunger that then drove me. I’m pretty sure I sampled most of the menu. The Adjaruli Khachapuri, a cheeseboat with a floating egg, was the perfect thing to warm up with one night. Khinkali, Georgian soup dumplings, served that function another night. Each visit, I couldn’t resist a sizzling hot plate of fried mushrooms dripping with melted Sulguni cheese.

Over my seven days at Bakuriani, I challenged myself with tougher and faster runs. Pretty soon I started catching myself growing annoyed with less experienced skiers dawdling down the mountain. Somehow, my burgeoning overconfidence didn’t result in grievous injuries. The only time I slipped was after my skiing days were done, when I let my guard down on the icy walk back to town to catch a minibus onward.