We finally decided to go ski in the Pyrenees. 2 weeks ago we went to Nicolas and Alice's house for celebrating Reyes (Epifany) eating a great homemade almond paste cake. Nicolas is one of our work colleague. He is french and moved from Paris at the same time as us with his wife, Alice, and 3 years old daughter, Garance. At that Cake party we decided on skiing this weekend... and good for us, nicolas organised everything. He booked an apartment in Trigura de Dalt, a little village pearched in the mountain, not to far fromValter 2000, the ski resort we planned skiing to.
We left BCN on friday night after work, and got there around 9.00pm after 2.5h drive in sneaky roads between BCN and the pyrenees. We had not clue what the landscape looked like when we got there and were really curious to see what the view from the apartment was after having climbed so much on the tiniest raods ever up to 1500 m wherw was the village. The apartment was nice. Nicolas and his family had been there already for an hour and had starting cooking a dinner. We then decided to go to bed early so that we could wake up at 8 and be early in Valter 2000. Alice, Garance and Marie had decided that they rather liked exploring the village than coming skiing and let us, nicolas and me go explore the ski slopes by ourselves. I did not know how Nicolas was Snowboarding and really did not know what to expect. He turned out to be great, loving exploring off pist between the trees.
We woke up and finalaly realize how amazing the view was in front of us. We had a whole valley surrounded by flat top snowy mountains whole around, looking a little like Vermont (if you replace the maple trees with pine trees - there I guess due to the altitude). We got there after a quick breakfast in the apartment and toke the road to the resort. We were one of the first there which help me avoiding to much line to rend my skies. I did not expect what they gave me in that type of fast-food ski renting store. they were 1.5 m skies that looked really ridiculous next to my 2-m high (or I looked ridiculous standing next to them). I worried a Little not to be able to stand on the slope, not having enought grip (too much weight for not enought lenght of ski blade) but it turned out alright. They felt a little like what we call in french "patinettes" which are really short skies used for fun skiing and jumping; they are kind of unstable. But anyway, we had a great time. The snow was perfect, and the weather even better, and there were really not too many people. The resort is small but we still managed to find 1 or 2 good off-pists between trees following a little river. It was nice exercise and fun to not really know where we would get at the end (even if there was no real chance of getting lost). Nicolas and me had lunch and toke a little nap bellow few trees on the side a pist for Lunch and joined back the girls at the end of the day around 6pm.
Marie, Alice and Garance had had as much fun as us. They walked around and found great slopes for sleding. It was a first time for Garance who did not really know how to brake at the biggest fear of marie and alice seeing her speeding up towards the cliffs. Luckily the 4 year old little girl stopped naturally on a flat little surface right before the steaper part of the mountain. Hearing that, Nicolas decided that he wanted to experience that fun, and we decided then to cancel ski the next day and keep company to the ladies. It was a sage decision since both of us were really tired and wanted to take advantage of our sunday morning for sleeping. We went then to Camprodon, the main little town down the valley to return Nicolas board and buy some more dried meet. The Place is really well know for its dried ham, and sausages and bought then some for the next day lunch. It was feezing out and were happy to go back to the apartment for dinner. That night, Alice and Marie made us great dinner, Duck confit and veggies. It was great, really delicious. Nicolas opened up then one of his good bottle of wine that he brought back from France. We were not expecting them to treat us so well and really appreciated it.
The Next day, after a grasse matinee and amazing breakfast with Nutela in the morning sun, we went walk around in the village and play in the snow with Garance. That was a lot of fun. The lanscape is so amazing, we could have stayed there for ever. Garance was getting better at sleding, and we did too. We had then lunch outside on the terrace and relaxed there few more hours before heading back to barcelona. Marie and me decided that we had to do this type of little weekend more often realizing how many great place there are around BCN.
I also told her that one of the most amazing thing that I saw in Valter 2000 were the amount of snowshoers going up in a line to the summits of the mountains around and passing their day walking from one to the other. There were almost as many of them as they were skiers; like little ants very far away we could see them all around us on the top of the circle of summits that was surrounding us. It seems that the pyrenees are more accessible to this type of freestyle excursion than the alps. We totally have to explore this option our next trip.
This ends up our weekend. We start a new week tomorrow, and I start school on Tuesday with an intensive week. We will see what that gives, but I am definitely happy to have taken fully advantage of the weekend before suffocating in a classroom.
