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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
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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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
Cheer for the tip on the passes, I'm of to PdlC on the 25th and luckily
haven't pre-booked ) -- David Brown ) http://kitemap.co.uk/stack |
#3
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:47:57 -0000, "David Brown \)"
wrote: Cheer for the tip on the passes, I'm of to PdlC on the 25th and luckily haven't pre-booked ) Wouldn't have mattered too much, as long as you decided which you wanted _before_ you first used the pass. Oh, 'ang on, that was from the Soldeu end - not sure how easy it would be to change from PdlC. I'll be interested to hear whether your experiences match my own. BTW PdlC has been described as 'like Blackpool without the Kiss-Me-Quick hats', so I hope you're well prepared :-) -- 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. |
#4
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
"Ace" wrote in message ... On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:47:57 -0000, "David Brown \)" wrote: Cheer for the tip on the passes, I'm of to PdlC on the 25th and luckily haven't pre-booked ) Wouldn't have mattered too much, as long as you decided which you wanted _before_ you first used the pass. Oh, 'ang on, that was from the Soldeu end - not sure how easy it would be to change from PdlC. I'll be interested to hear whether your experiences match my own. BTW PdlC has been described as 'like Blackpool without the Kiss-Me-Quick hats', so I hope you're well prepared :-) Ace's Golden Rule no 12 - never travel without a Kiss-Me-Quick hat |
#5
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
Paul Schofield wrote:
"Ace" wrote in message ... On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:47:57 -0000, "David Brown \)" wrote: Cheer for the tip on the passes, I'm of to PdlC on the 25th and luckily haven't pre-booked ) Wouldn't have mattered too much, as long as you decided which you wanted _before_ you first used the pass. Oh, 'ang on, that was from the Soldeu end - not sure how easy it would be to change from PdlC. I'll be interested to hear whether your experiences match my own. BTW PdlC has been described as 'like Blackpool without the Kiss-Me-Quick hats', so I hope you're well prepared :-) Ace's Golden Rule no 12 - never travel without a Kiss-Me-Quick hat It'll be a Ski Club thing, they like their badges, logo's and colour coded anoraks :-) |
#6
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
Well, speaking as a long time Soldeu (Grandvalira) fan (long time
means I've skied there for the last 6 years, which is not much when compared with the experience some of you "boys" have ) I think I can give some tips about challenging terrain there. As Ace says, the snow cat that pulls you up to the "Pic d'Encampanada" (look at your maps) brings you up to to the starting point from which you can take four routes down to the base camp. The 4 of them are quite, quite challenging, but the nicest ones are the ones sliding among the trees. Truly good. The rest of off-piste skiing is good too, although you have to catch a fresh snowfall to enjoy it to the max. Most off-piste zones are quite open bowls and snow tends to get blown away or hardened quite fast. But I have to differ a little bit regarding on-piste skiing. To my mind there are quite challenging black runs around, and depending on the snow conditions, they can be *really* hard. I've skiied in some other places like 3V or St Anton/Lech/Zurs and the Gaig or Avet slopes in this resort compare to whatever other hard slopes I've found around (e.g. Kandahar run in St Anton). So if you're planning to go, don't be discouraged in advance. I'd say that most of the skiing terrain in Grandvalira is in the intermediate range (reds), but some of the blacks will give most of you quite a challenge. Good luck and enjoy. Ace wrote in message . .. 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 :-) |
#8
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
"Ace" wrote in message
Wouldn't have mattered too much, as long as you decided which you wanted _before_ you first used the pass. Oh, 'ang on, that was from the Soldeu end - not sure how easy it would be to change from PdlC. Which side did you spend more time skiing on? It's just that we aren't expert skiers, more the level of the top group lessons, and was wondering whether to get the Grandvalira pass or just PasGrau. Last time we went, we were in El Tartar and there was plenty of skiing to keep us ocuppied for a week just on the Soldeu side. Our instructor recommended we went over to Pic d'Encampanada, so must have thought we were up to the challange, but as our lessons were in the afternoons we liked to take it fairly easy in the mornings, mainly playing under the chairlifts in the trees ) Also I'll be boarding half the week and skiing the other half, and my boarding skills are none too great, so will the PdlC side keep me busy? I seem to remember there being some fairly large flat areas between Soldeu/PdlC, do you think they might be big enough for me to bother taking my kites? I'll be interested to hear whether your experiences match my own. BTW PdlC has been described as 'like Blackpool without the Kiss-Me-Quick hats', so I hope you're well prepared :-) I am a beer monster ) Did you try the night skiing over at Font Negre? Cheers -- David Brown ) http://kitemap.co.uk/Jack-Foil-5m.JPG |
#9
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:58:18 -0000, "David Brown \)"
wrote: "Ace" wrote in message Wouldn't have mattered too much, as long as you decided which you wanted _before_ you first used the pass. Oh, 'ang on, that was from the Soldeu end - not sure how easy it would be to change from PdlC. Which side did you spend more time skiing on? It's just that we aren't expert skiers, more the level of the top group lessons, and was wondering whether to get the Grandvalira pass or just PasGrau. High winds kept a lot of the top lifts, and hence the links, closed for a lot of the time, so obviously we stayed in SeT. When they were open, we probably went over two or three times a week, but we were often constrained by group members needing to be back at Espiolets to pick up offspring from ski school at 1pm. Last time we went, we were in El Tartar and there was plenty of skiing to keep us ocuppied for a week just on the Soldeu side. Our instructor recommended we went over to Pic d'Encampanada, so must have thought we were up to the challange, but as our lessons were in the afternoons we liked to take it fairly easy in the mornings, mainly playing under the chairlifts in the trees ) Some nice runs down there, aren't there ;-) Also I'll be boarding half the week and skiing the other half, and my boarding skills are none too great, so will the PdlC side keep me busy? I imagine so, yes. But if you prefer the more sheltered tree-line runs you'll need to be in SeT as they are few and far between in PdlC. I seem to remember there being some fairly large flat areas between Soldeu/PdlC, do you think they might be big enough for me to bother taking my kites? Kites? I'll be interested to hear whether your experiences match my own. BTW PdlC has been described as 'like Blackpool without the Kiss-Me-Quick hats', so I hope you're well prepared :-) I am a beer monster ) Did you try the night skiing over at Font Negre? No. Where's that? -- 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. |
#10
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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments
"Ace" wrote in message
... Also I'll be boarding half the week and skiing the other half, and my boarding skills are none too great, so will the PdlC side keep me busy? I imagine so, yes. But if you prefer the more sheltered tree-line runs you'll need to be in SeT as they are few and far between in PdlC. I'll probably get the whole area pass anyway if it's not much more expensive as we are going with 2 people that haven't been before so it will be nice to show them some runs that we know. Kites? http://www.snowkiting.info Did you try the night skiing over at Font Negre? No. Where's that? Every Wednesday night down into PdlC, I've never tried night skiing so am looking forward to that ) -- David Brown ) http://kitemap.co.uk/Jack-Foil-5m.JPG |
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