My goodness, that felt good.....

Very good pictures, Tony. The La Balma run looks inviting.

Dave Mac wrote:Very good pictures, Tony. The La Balma run looks inviting.

Ah, at last, a non wibble post.....!
Yes, it was nice. A long cruisy red around the edge of the bowl, passing a natural lake where they do diving classes, and then down a steeper section back into the base the other side. Loads of off piste off it too.
The Portella del Mig was the really inviting run - a quite narrow entrance into it and very steep (black IMO) and then long, wide and a consistent pitch all the way back into the base. Very fast, when my legs didnt start telling me to back off a bit!

Finn wrote:

Tony_H wrote:

Finn wrote:Pistes looked busy then! Far from the madding crowd.
I love Andorra & would give it five stars if it wasnt for the transfer from Toulouse.

Its not shorted from Barcelona I am afraid, although more direct roads.
Yes, it was really quiet, they made an effort to open Pas especially for us and there were a few locals, the odd tourist, and a couple of ski clubs out that was all. Arcalis was even better, we had the pistes virtually to ourselves, it was amazing. And fast.

Can I enquire if it was a good deal? :mrgreen:

No :wink:

Heres a couple more I have just been sent:

It looks lovely and sunny, Tony, my perfect ski-ing weather. And I'm glad you had a good time, and there was a bit of snow for you.

Ally

I'm too jealous right now to say that it looks beautiful, even tho I'm thinking it....Nart ! looks like you had a good time mate and the weather don't look to bad :)

I've never been to Andorra, someone once told me it was a bit flat but it doesn't look very flat to me.

Lovely pics, glad you had a good ski :D

Funny isn't it....you get ideas in your head.
On arrival and being told the snow was dreadful and there was almost nowhere for us to ski, we had visions of green meadows with a thin grey line of ice running through them - WRONG!
Also, I had this preconcieved idea that Andorra was drastically different from the Alps; maybe not as mountainous, not as good, poor snow, flatter, slow lifts, etc etc. Again - WRONG!

So the snow was not at its best, but it was enough to get some good skiing in for a couple of days. A full week might have been more problematic, but their snow will come.

And as for the scenery, they might not have as many mountains as the Alps but they were mountains all right. One good thing about Andorra, they encourage off piste and there is so much potential for it after fresh snow. Sadly it was either gone or hard where we were so nowhere to give it a go, but you could see from the area where the good places would be.

Having now been and seen how large the ski areas are and how good the linking lift systems are, I would definitely go back for a week, preferably when there has been a massive dump of snow too.
I think maybe I was guilty like other people of dismissing it out of hand as a destination to consider, and my opinion has now changed.