Monday 14 December 2009

Saturday 12th December - Pas de la Casa/Grau Roig

Another bright sunny morning, so plenty of sun cream and lip balm. However, it was notably colder this morning as we drove up past Canillo, El Tarter and Soldeu and parked up at Grau Roig. This area is over the back from Pas de la Casa, but when conditions are good it links all the way across the Grandvalira area back to Encamp, just a couple of kilometres from Andorra La Vella, covering a total of 103km of pistes with untold off piste availability.
This picture is looking down into Pas at the end of the area from Coll Blanc at 2528m.

This was the only run down into Pas to be opened, as they were running the snow cannons all day to try and get some coverage in time for Christmas week when the tourist season begins. It was good snow top and bottom, with an icy hardpack section in the middle so you needed to be alert! There are normally a lot of runs down into Pas and a new section is opening into Porte des Neiges in France which will add another 60km or so soon.

We got as far as this on the right, looking up to Cortals at the top of the Soldeu section, but because of the lack of snow across here, we were unable to connect into Soldeu. This is where the cable car from Encamp comes into from nearest Andorra La Vella. However, we were able to ski down Enradort, a nice fast red, and take the Llac de Cubil chair back across and ski down into Grau Roig again.
From there we took the track to Pressons, a frozen lake with a lovely restaurant, but the track was shocking and should never have been open - loads of rocks and ice, and quite a bit of damage to Hfu's rented board. We decided to use the Mirador black next time, which whilst it had snow on it still was in parts decidely hard work with very little snow coverage.
This is looking across Grau Roig:


We had a quick lunch with Andrea, our guide for the day from Australia, and then had a bit of a play the rest of the afternoon, mainly on the main drag from Coll Blanc down into Pas and the other side down into Grau Roig, before all too quickly it was 4pm and time to call it a day.
Here is the view up from Pas:


It was only 2 days, but gave a good impression of the 2 main ski areas, and left us all wanting to come back and see it in good snow conditions as many of the pistes were closed and some of the offpiste looked really good fun.
We drove back to Andorra La Vella for a fantastic dinner at El Bon Raco just on the outskirts of town, and headed back to Heathrow on Sunday afternoon after a leisurely stroll around the town in the morning.
I had fun with the Stockli's and they held up well despite the variable coverage, but I am still itching to use my Neo's - which will be 10th January now, in Alpe d'Huez, another 4 weeks away yet......

Friday 11th December



Woke up to bright sunshine but slightly colder temps, and good news over breakfast that we were going to ski Arcalis as Pal and Arinsal were both not open. A 35 minute car journey and we finally saw some snow.

We met up with our guide for the day, Miguel, a retited doctor and race coach, and headed off up La Basera lift to Les Portelles at 2550m. There was clearly a lot of epic off piste action to be had around here, although sadly with no fresh snow for a week and warm temps, we weren't going to be able to sample it.
The temp suddenly turned chilly up here, and we decided to head down the first piste, which was La Portalla del Mig, a steep red under the chair back to the base. This was quite a testing start for us all, first action of the season and we get thrown down a long steep red! But it felt amazing...letting the skis run eventually after negotiating the steepest section at the top. These Stockli's felt nice and grippy, and then suddenly felt very fast as we bombed off after Miguel back to the bottom lift.



We had a nice tour of the area, there is roughly 70km of skiing and all but one piste was open, and we managed to ski it all in the daym, with an hour for lunch at 1pm. There are some lovely cruisy blues around the back in La Coma area. Sadly the exciting looking L'Estany red from Cota at 2625m was the run that was shut, but would be well worth a burn down in good conditions. It was nice that the slopes were virtually empty......I reckon we saw 100 people tops all day, and most of them finished at 2 for a long lunch - what as waste of VST (valuable skiing time).
Hfu was struggling to keep up on his board; it wasn't great and he was finding it hard to maintain any speed on it, and had a couple of falls but nothing serious. Timm on the other hand was flying, and he and I started to have some fun and banter as the day wore on, resulting in the usual spraying of snow and the responding unhooking of my bindings and faceplant!
Round the front side of the resort, there are also a number of good runs including the fast red El Bosc as well as the more relaxed La Font blue, and we had an hour at the end of the day without the guide to let ourselves go a bit.
This is looking down the top part of the steep Portella del Mig red:

This is over in the sunny La Coma bowl at the back:

After a testing first day on the slopes, where better to relax than back in Andorra la Vella at the lovely Caldea spa and wellness centre with a personal 20 minute massage, followed by a selection of sauna's, steam room's and relaxation pools (after a beer, of course....)

Dinner was taken back at the hotel along with a few more beers and some shots, before being told that Pas de la Casa was being opened in the morning, so off we headed to get a decent night's kip.

Thursday 10th December 2009 - Andorra



First trip of the season, albeit a short one, so plenty of excitement as I packed my case and ski boots. I decided against taking the new skis due to snow conditions in the Pyrenees, which are reported as not being great, so I will take advantage of the ski rental that is included in my tour.

Headed off to Heathrow for 9.30am but as usual the M25 ruined the start to the trip and I didn't get to check in until 10.45am. Thankfully, BA allow online check in the night before, so it was fast bag drop and head off to get through security and meet the others in my group.

Finally met up with Jules, the trip organiser and a skier, and Timm - an Ozzy who rides his own boards - at the gate just before boarding the flight to Barcelona. Plenty of time to chat on the place though, as BA had not arranged to offload the cargo on the inbound flight so we sat on the tarmac for an extra hour.....

A nice smooth flight into Barca, where it was a warm 18c. Mind you, plenty of snow on the mountains as we flew over. Met up with Hfu, another boarder who had flown in from Bristol and headed up to the mountains on our private transfer. 3 and a half hours later and we arrived in Andorra La Vella to sort out the rental gear. Jules and Hfu had to get the full set: Jules got some short Volkl skis as she was going in for a lesson in the morning, Hfu got a Dynastar board and some soft boots, whilst I selected a nice shiny red pair of Stockli Spirit ski's in 165's.

Enough time to meet some of the guys from the Tourist Board over a couple of beers and some Tapas before a reasonably early night (11.30pm) in readiness for the skiing the next morning, although there was some doubt as to where we would go if at all because conditions were so poor due to the warm weather the past week or so.
were in good condition with no stones or icy pathces, except right at the bottom of the resort.