Skiing
Archived posts from this Category
Friday, 12th March 2010
Posted by Judith on 12 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Holiday, Skiing
We left Andorra this morning and headed back into Spain to ski at Port del Comte. We drove there via Organyà and checked out the accommodation while there. The drive across the pass towards the ski resort was breath-taking. Razor sharp crags and steep valleys. I was so awed by the scenery I forgot to take any photos.
We’ve had a free pass for Port del Comte for the last few years, but never went. It always seemed too far, or we ran out of time, etc. What a mistake. It’s a brilliant place. Great facilities, nice runs, loads of chair lifts and very, very good piste grooming. Oh, and deserted. We had a really nice day, working our way from the furthest section of the resort back to the car, via every single red and blue run in the whole resort. Unfortunately, it was a little hazy and then clouded over a bit, so the views were not as good as they may have been, but no matter.
We’ll definitely go again. 8/10!
Thursday, 11th March 2010
Posted by Geoff on 12 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Holiday, Skiing
Geoff writes: after skiing at Puigmal, we drove up the road to stay in Andorra. We’d booked a hotel over the internet for the night, right in the centre. Nice hotel, cheap, and offered parking and internet access. What it didn’t say was that the internet access was one euro per 15 minutes; and the parking cost a staggering 19 euros. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much choice – the hotel was in the centre of Andorra La Vella, and there isn’t much parking there at all. Andorra is just steep mountains, with not much space for anything else – it’s amazing they manage to fit a whole country in there.
Anyway, the skiing there is excellent. Today we skied at Arinsal, which is apparently the Brit hangout in Andorra. The French go to a different part. Not sure where the Andorrans go. Even the woman selling the ski passes was a Brit. It was a beautiful day, nicely groomed pistes, good, fast skiing, and not too many people. We had a great time, and it was far better skiing than Puigmal. We did a lot of runs, but nowhere near covered the whole resort of Vallnord, which Arinsal is part of – you’d need a few days for that. There was one particular black run I spent some time contemplating – looking at it from a distance it seemed really easy; looking at it from higher up, it seemed really steep! I was also put off by a sign on the button lift leading up to it, saying that the button lift was difficult, and the piste was really difficult. But in the end, we went up and did it, and actually it was fine, no problem at all. Glad I didn’t wimp out.
Andorra seems to be one of the main destinations for Brits going skiing. Parking apart, it is much, much cheaper than France, as cheap as Spain (maybe cheaper for some things), and, in our limited experience, seems a really good ski area. Apparently there are also a lot of Brits who live there but don’t ski – presumably for tax reasons, though I don’t know what they do with themselves all day, since apart from the mountains, there doesn’t seem to be much else there. Maybe they just get drunk on the cheap alcohol, and count their money (actually, not necessarily a bad way to spend your retirement).
In the evening we met up with with our friends Jessica Love and Ivan Ripoll – both paraglider pilots, though Ivan is in Andorra teaching speed riding. A great evening, and we stayed that night in their flat. Really nice to see them both.
Wednesday, 10th March 2010
Posted by Judith on 12 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Holiday, Skiing
We’ve finally managed to get a forecast for 8 days of consecutive sunshine, so we’re off on holiday. Hooray!
We headed up to the Cerdanya valley to go skiing at Puigmal, for which we have a free pass. One of the things the blog is useful for is to check our opinion on places we’ve been to before, but unfortunately our previous visits to Puigmal precede starting the blog two years ago. Our memory of the place has obviously been somewhat addled with time, as we probably would not have come again had we remembered it correctly, or looked at a piste map before we set off. It’s a big resort and one of the highest in the French Pyrenees, but it only has two chair lifts. To get to the top of the resort (2700m) you have to take one chair lift and three long button lifts, so it takes about half an hour to work your way up there, but only a short time to get down. We forced ourselves to go as high as we could, but the last lift was closed, so we missed out on the best views.
My aversion to button lifts isn’t only due to the time it takes, but having had two operations on both my knees and having little cartilage left, they actually cause a lot of discomfort and it severely shortens our skiing day. We skied most of the day on the runs that were accessible by chair lift or short button lift, but then finished at 3.40pm to save some energy and knee strain for our free ski pass in Andorra tomorrow.
Friday, 5th March 2010
Posted by Judith on 05 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Skiing
We knew a whole bunch of pilots were going to Masella today and the first person we bumped into in the car park was Nani. We skied together for a few runs and then headed up to the top of the resort and met up with Xiliu, Sergi, Albert and Ricardo. A Santa Brigida reunion. They all went off-piste down some precipice above Coma Oriola. We thought better of it and stayed well away! Once we split up we lost them and never saw them again.
Masella was unusually busy. There were stalls from most skiing manufacturers with demo skis, but there were also loads of groups of first aiders and mountain rescuers who were doing practice runs. We were a bit concerned about the number of accidents until we clocked that it was either a convention or a training camp.
Tuesday, 2nd March 2010
Posted by Judith on 02 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Skiing
We went skiing at Masella. It was all fine, nice snow, sun, lots of runs, yada, yada, yada, until they closed part of the resort due to an accident. Passing on the lift we could see a big team of paramedics working on the casualty, but by the time we had skied back to the lift it was closed. We could hear the sound of the approaching helicopter and skied to the bottom of the resort immediately. After the summer we had, we didn’t have the stomach for watching another helicopter rescue.
It was a warning to take it easy and we did so for the rest of the day. On the way home we decided to stop at Ribes. We know the ski shop like the back of our hand, but haven’t been to the old part in years. I remember now why… it takes all of 5 minutes to walk round it and the main streets are nice and colourful, but the rest is a bit shabby round the edges. Still, nice to have a walk down memory lane.
Thursday, 25th February 2010
Posted by Geoff on 25 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Skiing
Geoff writes: a nice day was forecast, but we thought it would probably be too windy for flying, so went skiing (me having more or less recovered from my near-fatal accident of yesterday). In the mountains, the weather wasn’t as good as we expected, cloudy, with wet snow at the bottom of the pistes. We stayed high up, but eventually it got clagged in, and started spitting with rain, so after three hours or so we gave up – cloud, rain and wet snow don’t make for a great days skiing. At home it was sunny and warm. The difference 50km makes.
But I did have a nice experience to counter the crap a couple of days ago with the Guardia Civil. The van was booked in for repairs, so whilst I was waiting I went to a cafe, where the owners started chatting to me, asking me what such and such a phrase was in English. When it was time to pay for my coffee, they refused to take any money, because – they said – I was so friendly.
Next time, I’ll order a full meal…
Wednesday, 24th February 2010
Posted by Judith on 24 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Skiing
We had something of a dilemma today – skiing or flying. Both seemed possible and the Niviuk guys and Johnny were going back to Sant Pere de Rodes. In the end we decided to go skiing, not having been so far this week. Conditions were good and the upper runs beautifully groomed and despite it being 20C at the beach, it wasn’t slushy. Sunny and warm, although a little windy at the higher levels.
Geoff splatted on the last run, and nearly took out a kid. He worried about subsequent concussion, internal injuries, broken neck, lassa fever and ingrown toe nails until I told him to pull himself together. It seems the only lasting damage is a severe case of hypochondria!
P.S. Johnny and the Niviuk guys had a great day at St Pere, getting several hundred meters above take off. Johnny flew for an hour and a half, landing sweaty, exhausted and exhilarated.