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Old January 16th 04, 01:28 PM
dlogan
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Default Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments

2 of us are going to Pas on the 25th Jan, we would like to sort out the lift
passes in advance if thats possible.

I've never been before, but looking at piste maps I reckon Pas de la
Casa/Grau Roig would be sufficent, although if I can get to and use
Soldeu/el Tarter for an extra few quid which as you point out is now
possible and both areas are combined are under the name of Grandvalira,
then I would do that.

I've emailed Grandvalira and they've replied to say just buy them when you
get there..although when you get there the first thing I want to do is dump
my bags and hit the slopes, our ETA is 1/2pm.
I've asked the agent I booked with and they've not got a clue - Grandvalira
?? whats that ?? was the reply, they offered a pass for PdlC for 100 pound.
My question is can I purchase the Grandvalira pass anywhere prior to our
arrival ?? if not what should I be prepared to do when I get there ??

Thanks
David.
(to email me, replace 'nospam' with 'yahoo')


"Ace" wrote in message
news
Well, I'm back from my three-week slot in Soldeu, with a very positive
feel about the place.

First off, they're really trying to market the new name of Grandvalira
for the combined area of Soldeu/el Tarter and Pas de la Casa/Grau
Roig. The agreement on revenue sharing was only finalised in October,
so they're not going to have much of an impact this season, although I
was interested to bump into Minty Clinch, with a bunch of other UK
Journos, on a fact-finding mission - could they have been there at the
resort's invitation, I wonder :-? Look out for an article by her in
the Evening standard (and post a reference here if anyone sees it
please).

Some problems have arisen with lift maps (tens of thousands of
individual ones were printed for each resort, so many people haven't
been given the new combined one) and passes. The latter are electronic
in S/eT but old-fashioned card with photo in PdlC and there have been
problems with pre-booked season tickets not working for both. My wife
had to pay aboput 85 euros to upgrade hers - it's about 20 euros extra
for a week, so well worth doing. In the first week, some punters were
mis-informed that they could upgrade later in the week, which is not
possible, but instead would have had to buy day passes at 35 Eu, which
is a situation they need to get resolved asap, IMO.

Access between the two areas is very good (much improved, apparently)
with some additional pistes being made to shorten the journey (i.e.
cut one of the lifts out in each direction). Some confusion is still
caused by the existence of two newish 6-man chairs, starting right
next to each other, each called Pla de les Pedres, one of them being a
S/eT lift and the other PdlC. At least they're both marked on the maps
now.

As for the skiing, well, anyone looking at my reports on the skiclub
site will know we had _loads_ of snow over the first two weeks, much
of which was scoured off the more northerly slopes by the strong
winds, although there was plenty of powder if you looked for it. Which
we did, of course :-} Last week was bright and sunny for five days,
with the snow in excellent shape. Fri and Sat were somewhat washed out
due to rain and wind, although we still had a good day's skiing, and
Sunday had dawnedsunny again when we left the resort.

Andorra's known as a beginner/ intermediate resort and I can see that
it would be very good for these groups - for more advanced skiers
there are plenty of blacks with genuine steep sections (I measured one
at over 40deg), although they're all wide and straight, so don't offer
anything _too_ challenging.

Off-piste, however, there are some superb possibilities. I only did it
once, but there's a snowcat tow that operates occasionally (you just
have to look out for it as it's not publicised) opening up a whole
bowl of skiing which is relatively untouched, as the maximum capacity
would be about 60 per hour and it only seems to operate for a few
hours every few days. Four itineraires are marked on the map, two red,
two black, with one of the latter being a very nice-looking couloire
(sadly, this was not on the agenda, being completely exposed to the
40mph winds) and the others allowing a wide variety of tree, bowl and
face skiing to be accessed.

There's also one little-used tree area on the PdlC side, accessed by a
very long drag lift with a read and a black marked from it. This black
is one of the narrower/more intersting ones anyway, but the real
interest is in the tree-skiing between them - even four days after the
last snow there was still fresh, deep, fluffy powder in it, which we
took full advantage of.

The resort itself consists mainly of large hotels catering for a
largely British and Spanish clientel. Although some of them are modern
and 'posh'-looking, they'r all relatively cheap, it seems, and food is
mostly done on a buffet service and is generally not bad, although
some of them aren't too good at keeping their food properly hot. Other
restaurants in the town include Tex-Mex, Indian and Chinese.

Bars and clubs are pretty much the usual, with, of course, a
predominantly lager-lout market, and they seem to be well up to the
task :-)

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the

Ski Club.


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