The resort has had 30cm of new snow since yesterday, with friends reporting “the best powder I have ever skied in”. This is great news for our Easter holiday UK guests who will be arriving next week. The resort is 80% open with 70cm of snow on the pistes at 1800m and 140cm at 2500m. As is normal for spring, the avalanche risk is high, level 4, so off-piste skiers need to be very careful.
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| The hotel bar – now full of people. We forgot to take the camera to the party – sorry! |
While the resort enjoys snow, tonight the valley is enjoying a belated opening party at the Hotel du Tourmalet, owned by MountainBug founders Robert and Emma Mason. The band have arrived and are setting up, every few minutes a few more villagers arrive, the complimentary punch is flowing and the delicious food keeps coming! Tonight is a chance for people to see the inside of the hotel, with one of the floors being open for people to have a look.
Following a great couple of weeks, we’re currently receiving more snow, with another 20cm forecast over the next few days. Together with light winds, the Pyrenees are providing a fantastic last few weeks of the season.
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| One of our guests enjoying some boarding |
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| Another guest enjoying a “day off” snowshoeing, just above Bareges |
Due to last minute cancellations, our chalet has space available from the 31 March-7 April and we’re offering a 10% discount off the advertised price.
As the season quietens down, the locals are enjoying some time off and are flocking to the restaurant at MountainBug founder’s, Robert and Emma Mason, new hotel. Hotel du Tourmalet has been gaining a well deserved reputation for excellent food and having a very atmospheric bar, that’s great for an apre-ski drink and tapas.
We’re currently writing our end of season newsletter. If you would like to receive it or want to get in touch with us about anything else, please Contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
While this week’s guests have been enjoying beautiful snow under clear blue skies, we launched our new website. We hope you find it informative and interesting. Naturally, there will be glitches and errors, so if you find any, please do contact us.
If you are already booked on a holiday with us, then please be assured that while we have changed the names of some of our holidays (for example Gentle Walking is now called Explorer: Valleys, Villages and Cirques), they are all still running.
-If you want to experience the winter mountains, away from the skiers and pistes, then we recommend you try one of our guided snow-shoeing holidays. We’re running one in March and there are still places available on it.
The price includes:
– full board accommodation, based on two sharing, at either our chalet, Les Cailloux, or our hotel, Hotel du Tourmalet
– an experienced, qualified, local guide
– snow-shoeing equipment and tuition
– transport to and from your snow-shoe walks
Please contact us via our Contact Us page for more information and put in the heading “Snow-shoeing”.
So far, February has been a busy month. It began with a wonderful, huge dump of snow, up to 2 metres in some parts of the resort, and then a week later another huge dump. Combined with days of clear blue skies and sunshine, our February’s MountainBug guests have so far enjoyed perfect ski conditions.
The good weather continues this week with the odd snow-shower refreshing the slopes. This is perfect for the French and Spanish tourists who are on their holidays and can be seen having picnics by their camper-vans in the ski resort car park!
On Friday 10 February, http://www.hoteldutourmalet.com/ opened its doors to guests for the first time. This newly renovated hotel is owned and run by MountainBug founding directors, Robert and Emma Mason. It’s a very high standard, 3 star hotel, with its own restaurant and cafe-bar open to residents and non-residents. The restaurant’s chef, Stephan Vincent, has created a menu of mouth-watering Pyrenean-meets-Provence style cuisine, including an early evening tapas menu. Tonight the bar is holding its first Happy Hour… so if you are in the area, do pop in! This is a regular event from 17.00-19.00, so hopefully we’ll see you there one evening.
MountainBug Director, Martin, ended last week by skiing over to La Mongie for a complimentary trip up the Pic du Midi. He had a tour of the observatory and found out how our guests can visit this amazing place. We’re doing a new trip this summer which includes visiting the Pic du Midi observatory and having lunch in their restaurant while surveying the Pyrenees and beyond.
This week our guests were treated to huge dumps of snow over the last 2 days. Yesterday the pistes were beautiful with clear blue skies and fresh powder. Today the sky is clouding over, ready to give us some more snow.
View from the Pic du Midi, Friday 27 Jan, before our recent big dump of snow.
Some of our guests decided though that being in the snow with full ski gear on was a bit too tame…so they did a Scandinavian-style sauna then roll in the snow, in the chalet’s back garden…nippy!
Last week our snow-shoeing and skiing guests were joined for two nights by Dave Watts, co-founder of the influential book and website, Where to Ski and Snowboard. Dave was on a whistle-stop tour of the Pyrenees. He’s written a blog post about his time here http://www.wtss.co.uk/blogs/thin-snow-cover-but-good-piste-skiing-and-friendly-people-in-the-pyrenees.
After the traditional end of January lull for a few days, we’re delighted to be welcoming more skiers this weekend. The skiing above 1800m is good, with the snow-cannons working well at night to provide coverage and more snow promised this weekend.
Currently, all hands are on deck at the Hotel du Tourmalet, which is scheduled to open in 2 weeks, ready for the busy February half-term. We’ll post photos as soon as we can, as it looks beautiful. We’re very excited, especially after new chef, Stefan Vincent, cooked some of us a meal the other night based on the menu he’ll be serving at the hotel.
This week’s and last week’s guests have been enjoying the winter views via snow-shoeing. Snow-shoeing is a great way to reach wintry mountain peaks without needing to put skis on or get on a lift.
Led by our experienced, local guides, the groups have been visiting places such as Cauterets and the Pont D’espagne, the Cirque du Gavarnie, Plateau de Saugue, and the valleys and forests near Pic D’Ayre.
Aygur Clus
Making our own trails
Which way now??
Group photo, with guide Julian in the middle
We can run snow-shoeing hoildays all over winter, for groups of 4 or more, so if you are interested, please contact us.
Snow in Bareges, 19 Dec. Clearing a path to the chalet.
View from the Pic du Midi, 26 December
The busy school holidays are over and we’ve settled into the January routine of quiet week days and bustling weekends. This is a great time of year to hit the slopes as the pistes are virtually deserted midweek and there are no queues on the ski lifts.
The resort is currently 80% open, including 18 green runs, 17 blues, 15 red pistes and 1 black. There is 50cm of snow on the slopes at 1800m and 90cm at 2500m. The pistes are hard in the morning, but softening nicely in the sun.
Of course it would be nice to have some fresh new snow. Still, our snow-shoeing group this week are enjoying fabulous views and bright sunshine. A high pressure system over Europe at the moment looks set to give us fine weather, with mild days and very chilly nights until the weekend.
