 Poster: A snowHead
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High winds resulted in much of Baqueira being closed today. With high temperature and rain in the morning turning the snow on what was open to porridge. Lovely lunch at the Cinqo Gotas at 1800 waiting for the sun to come out made the afternoon a little better. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Not so windy, but twice as wet. Today was soggy with rain up to 2000m.
Sun forecast tomorrow. It will be interesting to see the state of the snow.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Looks like it's snowing in Arcalis now, I'm heading up there on Thursday...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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.......and then the sun came out !
Had an excellent morning looping the TS Dossau Chair as it hadn't been open for a few days. Fresh tracks, but it was getting very soft by lunchtime. Some good spring snow all around Beret.
April conditions in March, making it soft everywhere and heavier the lower you go.
The best skiing is staying high and if you're not comfortable with slushy bumps then taking the lift down from 1800 is advised.
Piste conditions are pretty good considering the amount of rain. Warm weather for a few days then more colder with snow forecast.
No queues and some areas pretty much to ourselves. Makes a nice change after the very busy holiday periods even if the weather hasn't been perfect this trip.
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Was in Arcalis for 2 days, great little station, the freeride area above the Les Cressuets lift is awesome, and the snow is good up there. The rest of the off piste is a bit crusty though
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Can anyone reassure me that the Luz Ardiden & La Mongie/Bareges neck of the Pyrénées is going to have good (or better) conditions in the next 7 days? 
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@crosbie, Its going to have much the same as last week, warm and sunny. The warm weather is really starting to eat the snow now, Luz will be ok to the end on 2nd april but if there is no more significant snow fall Bareges/La Mongie and Cauterets will really struggle to make it to mid/end april.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ah, I see by your sig @dixon66, that you may well know who I am, and that I'm very likely to be frequenting your fine restaurant and bar in the next few days (assuming you're one of the proprietors). 
Even if the snow is slushy, at least I have La Tasca to look forward to.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Just back from four days in Ax les Thermes. My first trip. Friday and Saturday was the hottest weather I've ever skied in (22 degrees at the top!) and my face is bright red. Snow of mixed quality, not much off piste skiable and a few blacks closed. The area itself is excellent and in good snow there's loads to explore. Drove to Porte Puymorens on the Sunday (30 mins) and it's a nice little station but visibility at the top was rubbish and all blacks were closed. A couple of very slow lifts and a long drag and a few reds not really reds. Excellent red down from 2000 metres but weather spoilt our trip and we left early. Monday in Ax very wet and low cloud. We drove up to base station and took a look up and felt after the day before we wouldn't waste our money going up to just ski as we did in PP. We had a long breakfast back in the village and then I went to the Thermal baths which were great! I'd go back to Ax but as ever, we're in the hands of the snow and weather gods. Sun is forecast all week so skiing will get worse. 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Off to Grandvalira this weekend.
Is anyone in the resort at the moment, to give account on the snow situation?
New snowfall forecast for next week but, with recent temperature rise, am getting a bit worried.
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Soldeu is almost 100% open today and snow will puke in a day or two.
Will be fine.
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You know it makes sense.
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14-20st Mar, the snow/visibility/temperature was excellent 9am-1pm in Luz Ardiden & Bareges/La Mongie. Got a bit soft (and brown/mud-patchy in bottlenecks) & mash potato thereafter, so prone to trip up skiers, and slow down boarders. I even went bare-armed on one day (forgot the sun cream tho - oops).
Rain/sleet in Luz on Tuesday (21st) morning so that's probably helped. Dunno what it's been like today, as I'm now oop north in the Hautes Pyrénées, away from the peaks.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Hmm, mixed reports. Thanks very much guys, hopefully the forecasted snow will fall.
Can't wait to get away! 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Hello.
Just wondering how the pas de la casa area is holding up?
I see that up to 50cm is forecast this weekend?
Many thanks,
Ali.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Late as ever, but here are some photos from a couple of weekends ago.
It was the day after a fairly big dump, and, as I was pressed for time, I decided to finally pay a visit to Barcelona's closest ski resort: Port del Comte. Thing is, it's in the pre-Pyrenees rather than the mountains proper, and unfortunately it misses out on most of the snowfalls. Added to that, it's not a huge resort in terms of kilometers of piste, and the most interesting part of the resort - Estivella - is only open at weekends. So somehow it never fitted in to my plans, even when I spent a winter nearby in Andorra, and even though I've had several free day passes for it at one point or another.
Wow. An absolute gem when there's powder. I was completely blown away! Firstly, the resort is spread over a truly huge area; the piste map does it no justice whatsover. There are tons of places where you can ski off-piste with pretty mellow and hence safe gradients, and the pistes are all tree-lined and nicely varied.
There are several blacks that are geniunely black, and the lift system is pretty decent for a resort which doesn't have much money coming in. But the star of the show is the Estivella sector. It takes two long, antiquated two-man chairs to get up there, and I can totally understand why they don't open it mid-weed when there is hardly anybody around. But there is so much terrain to play on, mostly pretty steep.
Obviously I hit it on the perfect day - and the sad fact is that it doesn't get all that many perfect days in general. But this year has been fantastic for the handful of Spanish resorts which rely on the snow coming from unusual directions, and I can't wait to get back there. Indeed this coming Sunday is looking pretty good for it! (The snowfall on Saturday looks like it'll bounce around between all directions, so I guess everywhere will get something.)
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Sat 25-03-17 13:03; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I'm late reading all of this month's posts, but I hope everyone had some fun trips in the Pyrenees despite the insanely high temperatures of the previous couple of weeks! It's now inevitable that it's going to dump down tomorrow (Saturday), but it'll pay to keep a close eye on the avalanche warnings for the following couple of days, since there's going to be quite a variety of temperatures, and the snow is falling on the layer of Saharan sand that inevitably greets the Iberian peninsular at mid-season.
I think that all resorts will make it to their planned closing date with no problem, and we can have a full month more of sliding in many places.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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It was another absolute blinder of a day in Port del Comte today... The secenery was white in all directions, the endless pine trees were covered in snow, and there were blue skies all day. Half a metre of powder in the Estivella sector, which was fantastic and didn't transform until very late in the day. I got chatting to some locals on the lifts and they said it's been the best season there for 10 years! Photos to follow later in the week.
I'm going to Superbagneres tomorrow and maybe Grand Tourmalet afterwards (in case anyone's about!). I drove over the Bonaigua pass to the Val d'Aran this evening and I can confirm that Baqueira received some nice fresh snow too - though perhaps not quite as much as what fell in the eastern Pyrenees. (I would imagine that Andorra did pretty well.) Here's hoping that the Ceciré sector in Superbagneres got a nice dump, has not transformed too much, and will actually be open tomorrow!!
If anyone's available to do the easier Pic du Midi stuff together mid-week, please do get in touch!
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ski_guide, ohh..does that imply piste closures? Will Ceciré be available for general skiing? It seems odd that their prediction for tomorrow is that half the pistes will be closed... Is that because of the ESF thing? Maybe I'm better off going straight to the western French Pyrenees.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Very interesting about Port del Comte considering the sketchy snowfalls in the Eastern Pyrenees. I guess you're lucky to be so close as to be able to pick and choose when you go. I've skied Masella (and La Molina for part of a day too) and really liked it so PdC could be done as part of a trip to this area I suppose but there must be very few English voices heard on the slopes. I was a touch unlucky with Ax in terms of snow and weather but there's no doubting it's a great little ski area and I'd love to do it again in great snow. However, the little I know about weather systems suggests that while the Midi Pyrenees do well, the East suffers from more wind and bad days in general. Is this the case?
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| Pyremaniac wrote: |
| ski_guide, ohh..does that imply piste closures? Will Ceciré be available for general skiing? It seems odd that their prediction for tomorrow is that half the pistes will be closed... Is that because of the ESF thing? Maybe I'm better off going straight to the western French Pyrenees. |
The resort's piste info page did confirm this morning that Céciré would be open, so I went for it, since that was the part that I really wanted to explore. I chose to ski rather than snowboard which was the right decision; Céciré was in great condition and was a hard test of my still-intermediate skiing. I was fine on the reds once they'd warmed up (although the direct one down to the restaurant would have been my nemesis at 9:30 when it was icy), but I admit that I got myself into a right tangle on the mogulled black down the same valley... I definitely don't have the technical level for that yet! The snow was still great off piste once the surface frost had melted (though I couldn't make much use of it on skis; it's a proper mountainside, that sector) and the piste skiing was great between 9:30 and 12 in the morning. It was clear that the afternoon skiing wasn't going to be up to much though, as one might expect from the northern side of the Pyrenean axis in springtime this season (which has favoured the resorts on the southern side); I took the afternoon to get some work done.
I had to make a judgement about whether to go to the western Pyrenees, and although Cauterets seems in great condition it's a hell of a drive back home from there. I decided to bail on that plan (saving it for a more typical winter of northerlies) and instead I'll go to Boí (which is south of Baqueira) tomorrow. It got a bit of new snow this morning and will get a bit more tonight. It's certainly their season this year.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Ignatius wrote: |
| Very interesting about Port del Comte considering the sketchy snowfalls in the Eastern Pyrenees. I guess you're lucky to be so close as to be able to pick and choose when you go. I've skied Masella (and La Molina for part of a day too) and really liked it so PdC could be done as part of a trip to this area I suppose but there must be very few English voices heard on the slopes. I was a touch unlucky with Ax in terms of snow and weather but there's no doubting it's a great little ski area and I'd love to do it again in great snow. However, the little I know about weather systems suggests that while the Midi Pyrenees do well, the East suffers from more wind and bad days in general. Is this the case? |
Yeah, Port del Comte has had a fantastic year, which was long overdue it seems. Being able to pick and choose is of course a luxury, and I don't think even those of us who live nearby would want to chance a booking at that particular resort more than a week in advance! It simply doesn't snow reliably enough there, unfortunately. A real pity, since it's fantastic when it's on. The locals told me that up until about 20 years ago it used to be really reliable... and I've heard that the same's true for La Molina. And you're right: there aren't many foreign voices; like all of the lesser-known Catalan resorts, it's very much a locals' place.
I had the same feeling as you about Ax, and I would really like to spend at least a weekend there when it's on.
BTW, the problem with the eastern Pyrenees isn't wind and bad weather (except maybe for a few stretches in this unusual season)... quite the opposite! The problem is too much sun and not enough heavy snowfalls. Still, if you like skiing in good weather there are few better places to go  . (Andorra is absolutely in the sweet spot, and despite the bad rap it seems to get on sH I think it gets almost the perfect combination of weather.)
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I've never experienced sun like it on March 10 and 11 in Ax. It was 22 at the top! Freakishly hot actually. They seem to close a few too many runs for my liking as I've kept tabs on it for a few years before I went this year. Where do you live in the Pyrenees btw?
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Hi guys, going to Soldeu in mid April for a week and wondering what to expect expense-wise? I thought Andorra was supposed to be rather cheap but from what I can find online, the only thing that's good value is alcohol. What should I expect to pay for lunch on the mountain, and meals in the evening? Staying in a hotel so don't have a kitchen to cook for myself
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