Sun, ski and spring

The sun is shining and spring is starting to arrive down the valley. As you drive up to Bareges, there are lambs and baby goats in fields that are slowly turning green. The first flowers are starting to appear although it won’t be until June that the mountains will burst with colour and scent.

As you pass through Bareges and towards the ski resort, there’s more signs of snow…then you reach the resort and it is business as usual! The pistes are still open, with a good covering of snow, over a compacted layer. The best time of day is from 10ish to 15.00ish when the night’s icy top layer has melted and the groomed snow is soft. Even better – the pistes are EMPTY! You can ski for hours and barely see anyone else. This combined with the lovely weather makes Easter Pyrenean skiing really enjoyable.

Our ski tourers this week have been heading to over 2000m, where there is still plenty of snow (about 60cm in places). The high peaks will have snow for a few more weeks, making it a good time for touring and snow-shoeing. Martin, one of our Directors, snow-shoed up to 2100m last week and was walking through 2 foot of snow. The hotel’s chef, Stefan, has been out ski-touring every day, practising for our Chamonix-Mont Blanc trip in April, which has a few spaces left still.
The ski resort is open for another two weeks and we have more skiers and ski-tourers arriving tomorrow, taking advantage of the longer days and the empty mountains.

View from the top station of Barege’s disused funicular

Flowers poking through in the sunny spots of the valley