Skiing in Andorra

Over the past few seasons Andorra, the tiny principality in the Pyrenees, sandwiched between France and Spain, has grown from a budget priced backwater, known for its duty free drink and easy, cheap and cheerful skiing, to become a major player in the global winter sports industry.

With a reputation for attracting a younger, livelier crowd, a ski holiday in Andorra is best suited for beginners and intermediates that want a good time both on and off the slopes. With the added benefit of being a duty free state you can save on alcohol, cigarettes and designer clothes whilst there.

Today Andorra claims to have the most sophisticated lift network in Europe, part of which has now outgrown the principality’s borders and is extending in to France this season.

Ski resort growth

Andorra has invested heavily with hi-tec new lifts at all of its ski areas. The miracle of the shrinking ski area numbers has resulted from that success as smaller ski areas grow bigger and merge together.

Pas de La Casa, Grau Roig and Soldeu - El Tarter are already lift linked and in 2004 put decades of rivalry behind them to become one ski area – Grand Valira. Pal and Arinsal have now also become one after being lift linked, as far as marketing is concerned.

Only Ordino (Arcalis) is left standing alone, for now, although it too offers a host of high speed detachable four and six seater chairs and has joined Pal Arinsal in a joint marketing a lift ticketing operation under the banner VallNord.

So now Andorra has only two resorts and it may not be long before even these are joined. Officials in Andorra’s resorts speak of a time when skiers and boarders will be able to access one huge ski area from almost any town in Andorra (which would be handy to escape the ever more congested narrow valley roads!).

Ski Areas

Pal Arinsal offers a combined trail length of 63km (39 miles) of runs served by 30 lifts, with a combined total of 30,400 skiers per hour. The cable car that links the two runs, between Coll de la Botella at 2067m and Port Negre at 2489m, a distance of 2376m. The Doppelmayr-built lift, the first of its type in the Pyrenees, has a journey time of six minutes and can carry 50 people per car, offers spectacular views, and has a capacity of 500 skiers per hour.

The new lift represents the culmination of a huge investment in the area which has seen the installation of four new quads, a high speed gondola linking Arinsal to its resort base and the upgrading of trails, snowmaking and most other aspects of the two ski areas, now officially one.

Soldeu added a new access gondola to Canillo, following the addition of three new high speed six-seater chairs the year before. Canillo is the resort’s fourth base as it takes up ever more of the 20km (13 mile) road leading from La Vella in to France. The chairs link its snowsure and sunny slopes to those of neighbouring Pas de la Casa - Grau Roig, and the six six-seater chairs the two operate between them is the highest number for a single ski area in the world for that lift type.

In European measurement terms the Soldeu - Pas de la Casa terrain expands to 186km (118 miles) of full lift-linked skiing. The combined uplift figures are more globally understood and equally impressive: 58 lifts with a combined uplift of over 80,000 people per hour – more than Aspen, Vail, Whistler – even big European resorts like Courchevel or Chamonix.

Accommodation

Another improvement designed to improve Andorra’s reputation is the construction of four and five star accommodation. The resorts have also been spending on 'alternative facilities' besides skiing and shopping such as high class swimming and leisure complexes.

These include the most dramatic building in La Vella, the spectacular Caldea 'Thermoludic Centre' whose mirrored glass crystal spires cut the skyline. A serious health centre, it features a vast array of luxurious pools as well as health and beauty treatments. Canillo is another good choice as it is one of the larger villages and has an excellent indoor sports centre, Andorra's national facility, including swimming pool and ice rink.

The increasing number of access points to the slopes is also seen as a key way of tackling the Principalities main problem, traffic. A victim of its own success, each morning the roads are full of cars in a snaking traffic jam up the steep sided valley from La Vella to the ski areas. Strategists have already calculated the maximum number of cars that can be crammed in to the road space, limited by the minimal amount of level ground in the country, before the principality grinds to a halt.

That time doesn't look to be too far off, especially as Andorrans themselves, reportedly generally at the wealthier end of European living standards, tend to buy the biggest SUVs available. Plans to tackle the problem include an extension of the Spanish rail system in to Andorra itself - making it more tempting for Spaniards, who make up the lion's share of Andorra's market, to consider using public transport.

Snow

Snow conditions are also a little different from those of the Alps. The southern European sunshine can beat down very warmly by the middle of the day, perhaps getting into double figures Celsius. This temperature is quickly reached from normally overnight sub-zeroes, and rapidly returns to around freezing as soon as the sun drops behind the mountains in the late afternoon. Combined with the high altitude and north facing slopes, this means that the slope surface shows few signs of deterioration from such a heat blast.

The proximity to the Mediterranean makes a morning ski and an afternoon swim in the sea a reality, a special treat for the last day before you hop on the plane perhaps. Then again the slopes and lifts are still busy at 5pm if you want to save sea swimming for the summer.

Transfers

One of the problems Andorra has is that it has no airport on its own territory and guests have to arrive from Toulouse in France or Barcelona in Spain, both a three-four hour drive. There has been talk of the construction of closer airports for many decades but nothing has yet been built.

Ski School

A major bonus for English speaking visitors is the fact that the Andorran ski schools employ large numbers of Australian, Kiwi and British BASI qualified instructors to teach at all levels. Whatever the ESF in France may tell you, this undoubtedly leads to a different attitude to teaching - more friendly, more relaxed and generally more enjoyable than the norm elsewhere in the Alps. Children and first timers seem to benefit especially.

Pricing

Where Andorra has always won over virtually every other ski holiday destination on earth is in its value for money.

Andorra manages to come in the top three in almost every value grading, but the investment in hi-tec lifts is causing cost implications with lift pass inflation running at 10% per annum for the past five years – more than three times the average in the Alps.

On the other hand the country's duty free status gives it some of the cheapest on-mountain and après ski dining and drinking anywhere in the world. If you rent your car in Spain you'll get some of Europe's best value - not much more than in North America and similarly if you fill up in Andorra you'll find petrol a third of the normal cost.

The resorts are full of high quality ski fashion retailers, all selling top name gear at prices that are often hard to believe - lower than the end of season clear out prices at many other resorts. Andorra La Vella is the main shopper's paradise stuffed with every consumer-desirable imaginable and there's a large duty free mega mart perched on the border just before Spain.

La Vella also has the best of the shops and the night life. The five star Hotel Plaza is arguably the pick of the bunch for the best quality here and the chains are moving in, including the multi-national Accor group with their Novotel as well as lower priced brands and a Holiday Inn.

The Future

The Grand Valira region has started its expansion into France with the new Portes de Neiges ski area. The complete Porte des Neiges initiative involves the construction of a new resort base with hotels and full leisure and retail facilities. Combining the existing two ski areas gives around 250km of trails served by about 90 lifts - which would place the extended area around the 20th largest in the world by total trail length.

Cheap ski holidays to Andorra's ski resorts

Cheap Skiing In Andorra