My thoughts on skiing in the Pyrenees

The Pyrenees and all its rugged beauty

I've only skied three weeks in the Pyrenees so admittedly these thoughts are from a fairly minimal experience.   I’m not an expert, and have limited experience of 5 resorts in Pyrenees so maybe not everything is true of everywhere.  I haven't gone to the trouble of checking all the technical specifications of mountain peaks and average annual snowfall over the last 100 years either - these are just my thoughts following spending 2 months in Alps last year and a month in Pyrenees this. 😁

It seems to me that nearly everyone, especially from the UK and northern european countries goes to the Alps for their winter holiday so the resorts there have especially large size and infrastructure particularly for alpine skiing.  For example the ski lifts seem to have considered every slope and possibility and access to slopes is frequent and convenient.  The free ski buses in the Alps have routes throughout resorts to make sure it's as easy as possible for everyone to get to the slopes throughout the day, whereas in the Pyrenees the service is a bit more limited. Outside school holidays only 1 bus runs on a weekday from Luz Saint Sauveur resort to get to the local slopes.  If you miss it you've got a fairly long and windy drive up the mountain to Luz Ardiden (29 switchbacks) or you have to pay to catch a bus to Barege and then onward to the Grand Tourmalet slopes.  There are more slightly more regular buses in La Mongie and I think Piau Engaly although it seems that lots of people drive up the latter on the day they go skiing,  maybe that was the case while I was there because the weather was good.  What this meant for us was that we tended to drive higher to get better access to the slopes.  There was only really Cauterets where we skied regularly and stayed in town.

And linked to this is our sense that the Pyrenees doesn’t feel as Moho friendly as not every resort has a good Aire or cheap camping (and many of them are closed).  Having said that you can’t stay overnight in ski lift car parks in Alps whereas we did in the Pyrenees - not that it was much fun but it did guarantee you an early ski lift if you wanted one.  I will say that the big exception to this was Cauterets which has a fabulous Aire in the centre of town.  I’m not sure why other towns don’t follow suit given how popular motorhoming is in France generally and that the Pyrenees is most popular to French people.  Maybe the accommodation is really good value anyway, I really couldn’t say.

Roxy enjoying the snow at the Tournaboup Telesiege Car Park

We were one of three vehicles that stayed the night and were awoken by local snow ploughs at 4am

The motorhome car park at La Mongie - it wasn't even level and had no access to any services (we survived there three nights)

There is a sense that the Pyrenees are more remote - it's obviously a long way to other resorts in Alps so if the conditions aren't good in your Pyrenean resort it's a long way to travel to alternatives.  But there are lots of resorts in Pyrenees and although similar weather not exactly same and so it is similar to the Alps.  However in the Alps there are often links between resorts so that you can ski across or just get a free ski bus around the valley.  The resorts and valleys in the Pyrenees aren’t that close and so this is much more challenging unless of course you go in your own car.  Actually a lot of Pyrenees ski resorts have collaborated under the NPy brand and through that they offer the ‘No Sousi’ card which allows you to ski at any of about 14 resorts usually at a discounted rate.  In our last week we were offered a chance to go to Piau Engaly by the NPy group and it fitted with our plans to travel on to Spain so we did it.  It resulted in a great couple of days skiing including taking part in an NPy World Cup promotional event on my birthday.  There follow some picks and a video of Melle taking part in this.

A significant plus for the Pyrenees is that resorts are way cheaper to ski especially with No Sous card which is accepted at all main French resorts do this allows you to move between resorts and benefit from their local weather improvements without any issue.  So for example a days skiing in the French Pyranees might be as little as €30 whereas in the bigger Alpine resorts it’s more like double that.  That’s a lot of money even over a week but when you go for longer the Alps can get v expensive.  Having said that our Grand Massif season tickets last year were even better value and averaged less than €20 a day because I was there for over two months.

Comparing the ski resorts themselves it’s clear that the Pyrenees are not as big in terms of km slopes but lots of off piste and the pistes are also excellent. Comparing from my own experience from Cauterets and Grand Tourmalet (in Pyrenees) and Samoens and Flaine (in Alps) I think there are actually more long open pistes in the Pyrenean resorts.  Flaine and Samoens probably have more sub pistes from those routes and maybe more thin trails and green slopes too but I didn’t feel let down at all by Grand Tourmalet, Cauterets or in fact Piau Engaly.  The pistes, especially in the morning, were excellent to ski and I would very happily return to any of these resorts in future.  However I think the No Sousi card was quite important in allowing us to try out a variety of resorts, to mix and match and not requiring us to stay at one resort for whole week.  I'm not sure that would have been quite such a good experience.

One of many wide open blues in Grand Tourmalet

The home run back to Tournaboup in Grand Tourmalet

Cauterets from the top - lots of wide open blues and reds

Lovely easy blue run at Piau Engaly

Mountain resteraunts are also very different experience - not as many in the Pyrenees (usually one main one or two at max per resort) but they are usually great value (with similar or even lower prices to town).  In the Alps there are some very lovely mountain resteraunts with some amazing balconies and views but they are very expensive - especially in comparison to lunchtime prices in the local town.  Hence for the last couple of trips we’ve never eaten in a mountain resteraunts in the Alps burn we actually considered a meal in Pyranees.

In the Alps you can be forgiven for thinking everything revolves around the alpine skiing and tourism.  The resort we spent a lot of time in last winter, Samoens, is said to grow from two and a half thousand residents to a population of 25 thousand during the February peak school holidays.  There is a sense in the Alps that it’s all about skiing and tourism whereas the Pyranees seems to have maintained a broader and more culturally diverse feeling - there’s lots of local stuff happening and it seems to involve local people and not just put on for tourists.  Of course the tourists who visit the Pyrenees are, in our experience largely French with a smattering of Spanish so there’s perhaps less of a distinction with locals anyhow.  We certainly enjoyed the local food and delicacies as well as very French entertainment.  We also felt there was a greater offer of outdoor and mountain activities to go alongside the skiing.  There’s a very deep love of nature and respect for the natural environment.  I’m not saying that this isn’t present in the Alps but perhaps you have to look harder for it?

Wild Ibex just 50m away when we went and visited the amazing winter wonderland that is Pont D’Espagne near Cauterets

The amazing brass band we saw in Cauterets - took us all out for an encore in the car park (sorry it’s sideways on!!)

Someone said weather but not so sure - we had cold, rain, sleet and sunshine in Pyranees. So no different there - I did think the spring snow felt different though - more skiable and less sticky. Plenty of snow in March when we went but we had heard that the early season lacked the depth of snow for ski resorts to fully open.  Nowadays I think the warmer weather is an issue in all mountain environments.  We also went to Super Besse in the Massif Central area of France (the small ski resort goes from 1350m to 1800m and below about 1700 we found the snow did get very slushy and difficult to ski because it was warm even when not sunny.

So in conclusion I think the Pyrenees really grew on me.  Initially and probably right up until the last week I would have said that I would prefer to return to an area of the Alps like Grand Massif if I were to go for an extended period.  But now - having experienced 5 resorts across the French Pyrenees - I'm not so sure.  I think I liked the experience of travelling through the different valleys, I liked the different flavours, sights, sounds and qualities that each different area brought.  And so I would say that I have been attracted to coming back to the Pyrenees.  As well as experiencing some of the areas I've already been to in more depth I'm sure there are new places and experiences that Melle and I would enjoy.  The skiing was great but, in addition, I think it was a more rounded experience.  Watch this space.....

This blog was written by Chris