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Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 12th 04, 03:08 PM
Ace
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Default 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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  #2  
Old January 13th 04, 10:47 AM
David Brown :o\)
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Default 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  
Old January 13th 04, 11:11 AM
Ace
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Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old January 13th 04, 12:28 PM
Paul Schofield
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Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old January 13th 04, 12:52 PM
Ian Spare
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Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old January 14th 04, 08:44 AM
fawlty
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Posts: n/a
Default 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 :-)

  #7  
Old January 14th 04, 10:07 AM
Ace
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Grandvalira (Soldeu) comments

On 14 Jan 2004 00:44:36 -0800, (fawlty) wrote:

snip

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.


There's a few other bits of tree-skiing, in the Escorxabia bowl above
the snow park and on the opposite side keeping skiers left off the
blue from the col and dropping down further round. Plus the area in
PdlC I mentioned earlier.

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).


There are much herder, believe me. The two runs you mention are indeed
very good, and could be tricky in icy conditions, but they lack the
sorts of direction and terrain changes that you'll find on many of the
harder French Blacks.

Take the 'Face' run in Val d'Isere, for example: there are many places
where rocks and steep drop-offs severely limit the line you can take,
requiring a very technical approach to turning, or sideslipping, that
you just wouldn't find on the Soldeu blacks. I'm not trying to put
them down - they are genuinely steep and were _huge_ fun in the
powder, and let's not forget both the natural bumps and the
artificially created (for competition, I assume) mogul slope. Now that
_is_ challenging :-}

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.


I agree totally :-)

--
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.
  #8  
Old January 14th 04, 10:58 AM
David Brown :o\)
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Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old January 14th 04, 11:30 AM
Ace
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old January 14th 04, 11:45 AM
David Brown :o\)
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Posts: n/a
Default 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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