Saint-Lary-Soulan, France – Isabelle Mir stood atop the mountain she once called home. One of the highest towns in the Pyrenees, a 690- mile bank of steep, craggy mountains separating France from Spain, Saint-Lary-Soulan is where she learned to become one of the world’s great ski racers. It’s where she developed into a French heroine.
In 1968 she brought home an Olympic silver medal in the downhill as her countrymen in Grenoble looked on, and has trained everywhere from the Andes to the Alps. She knows a thing or two about where to ski.
As she surveyed the landscape around her – the towering peaks with the chairlifts climbing above the clouds and the simple little village nearby – she contemplated the mantra of the international ski set.
If you can ski the Pyrenees, you can ski anywhere.
“Exactly,” she said. “When you come here you have the feeling of the challenge.”
Don’t feel bad if you fall down the first time. Or the second. Or the third. The price of the average lift ticket
in the Pyrenees is about half the listed cost of one in the
Colorado Rockies.
Also, the scenery is unlike that of anything in Colorado. That includes the accommodations and the windy mountain roads, neither of which will make you homesick for a Holiday Inn or Interstate 70 at dusk.
More than anything, however, you will face a challenge unlike anywhere else.
Mir knows. During her racing days, she was a frequent competitor in the Rockies and still has Denver Post clips of her wins there. She returns to Colorado on holiday. She understands why Colorado is Nirvana for skiers. She has done the pilgrimage too.
But a special part of her soul is buried in the Pyrenees.
“Best in the world”
“In Colorado the skiing is wonderful,” she said. “The snow is the best in the world. But it’s very easy because it’s very light and very soft and the slope is like this (bends her hand in a gentle arc). Here it is very steep. The snow is sometimes icy because in Spain the wind is sometimes hot. When it’s hot the snow is like water.”
Not often. The Pyrenees are laced with snow cannons, including more than 100 in the Pyrenees ski resort triad of Aix-3-Domaines, about 60 miles west of Saint-Lary-Soulan. Look at a topography map of the Pyrenees and you’ll see the challenge.
While the Pyrenees are majestic enough to inspire French and Spanish painters, they aren’t terribly high. Saint-Lary-
Soulan’s elevation is only 5,544 feet. Vail’s is 7,500. The Pyrenees are the same latitude as Boise, Idaho, but the proximity to sunny Spain (Barcelona’s beaches are only 90 miles away) prevents temperatures from remaining low.
November-April season
Still, the Pyrenees boasts a ski season from November to April, with more than 30 ski areas on the French side and nine on the Spanish, not to mention 10 cross-country ski areas and a burgeoning snowshoeing business. And on occasion, the Pyrenees play to Olympian reviews. Mir recalls her Olympic year when the Pyrenees had the best snow conditions in Europe.
The French Olympic team wound up training in Saint-Lary-Soulan for a month.
Maria Jesus Alvarez, 36, is a native of Leon, Spain, and grew up skiing the Pyrenees. She has been coming to the Colorado Rockies for eight straight years for the same reason most people do: the quality of powder snow.
The Pyrenees, however, still have their special charm.
“In Europe, weather conditions can be a lot worse,” she said from Vail recently. “You can ski very often on ice or hard pack or heavy snow. For an exceptional ski day, it’s easier in Colorado than the Pyrenees. That’s for sure.
“But the good thing about skiing in Europe is the villages are the ski resorts in the Pyrenees, and they’re very authentic villages. They are places with lots of atmosphere. It’s nice here (in Colorado), but it’s more created for skiing.”
Yes, the Pyrenees is more than a skiing experience, just as Paris is more than an eating experience. The drive to the ski areas is as entertaining as the skiing. One day I drove from Lezat-Sur-Leze in the Pyrenees foothills to Saint-Lary-Soulan, a harrowing drive with views to match.
I descended the second of five 4,300-foot cols into Luchon, a postcard-perfect French mountain village with a tree-lined main street, sidewalk cafes, cozy restaurants and quaint hotels.
As I ascended again, I looked down from the two-lane road and saw a crystal-clear lake surrounded by little villages with sharp snow-capped peaks around it. At the top of the fourth col, I looked down at a spectacular, long green valley cutting through the spine of the mountain range.
Picture Switzerland with a dash of French countryside.
“The landscapes are beautiful,” Alvarez said. “They are here (in Colorado), too, but there (in the Pyrenees) they are more steep. Here they are more like big hills. There they are like steep mountains and from the top you can see all of the Pyrenees.”
Once in Saint-Lary-Soulan, the village won’t wow you. Don’t expect Aspen or Vail. What I found were simple chalets, one large lodge and simple stone apartment houses. Saint-Lary-Soulan, known for centuries for its thermal springs, is as pretentious as a wool ski sock.
“The people here like to live here,” Mir said. “They stay here. They like the mountains, the forests. It’s very quiet.”
The ski village of Aix-3-Domaines features a little courtyard surrounded by simple bars and restaurants, a four-story condo building and mall rental agency. There’s a deli where you can buy a ham sandwich for $3.60. I walked to the edge of one of the windy roads heading into town and could see beautiful views of villages between the mountains.
“We just want to stay like this with little hotels,” said Celia Fraisse, a spokeswoman for Aix-3-Domaines.
The lack of pretense is reflected in the price. On the December day Alvarez spoke, she paid $81 for her lift ticket at Vail. At her favorite ski spot in the Pyrenees, Baqueira Beret, she pays 35 euro (about $42) for arguably the top ski resort in Spain.
A one-day lift ticket at Saint-Lary-Soulan this high season is $35 for seven black runs, 15 red, 24 blue and six green. The ski area covers 130 miles of downhill runs and nearly 2,700 feet of vertical climb, topping out at 7,100 feet.
At Aix-3-Domaines, it’s $30 for two black, 11 red, five blue and five green, covering 45 miles, all fed by 17 ski lifts going as high as 7,920 feet.
Accommodations are similarly priced. Rooms can be found in the Aix-3-Domaines area for as low as $38 per person a night or $144 for a group of four for a weekend, both in the town of Aix-Les-Thermes.
The prices should leave you plenty of room for food, which is the hidden pleasure of skiing in mountains bordering France and Spain. On the French side you have the breadth of French cuisine with the added bonus of Pyrenees food, unique in its own way.
The selection of sausages, cheeses and foie gras (goose liver) is a welcome slice of local culture atop the usual ski fare of pizzas, fries and beer.
Across the border in Spain, eery bar in every town has its own tapas, delectable hors d’oeuvres made of everything from salmon to ham and seemingly all food groups in between.
You see, not everything in the Pyrenees is a challenge.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
Insider’s guide
GET THERE
Lufthansa flies from Denver to Toulouse, France, through Paris. For Spanish ski resorts, fly to Barcelona, using Lufthansa or British Airways.
GET AROUND
Unless you stay in the resort villages, rent a car. Public transportation, while good all over France, is somewhat limited in the Pyrenees. If you want to stop in Paris for a few days and leisurely drive through the French countryside, it’s 5 hours, 50 minutes to Toulouse. Rentals from Charles de Gaulle Airport start at $280 a week. Contact Hertz, hertz.fr., 011-33-825-861-861. Europcar, europcar.fr, 011-33-825-358-358. In Toulouse, Europcar at the airport is 011-33-825-825-514. Car rentals in Barcelona start at $235 a week at Casual Car Rental. Airport Hertz 011-34-93-298-3638, Airport Europcar 011-34-93-298-3300.
STAY
Aix-Les-Thermes: two-star Le Roy Rene, 11 av. Du Dr Gomma / 09110 Ax-Les-Thermes / France, 011-33-
5-61-64-2228, $38.40-$57.60 per night.
Aix-3 Domaines: Residence Ax Trois Domaines, 011-33-5-57-26-
99-31, residence-nemea.com, info@residence-nemea.com, studios from $155 a week for two people to $1,260 for 10.
Saint-Lary-Soulan:Hotel Holy Mercury, Jardins Des Thermes / 65170 Saint-Lary-Soulan, France, 011-44-
20-71-08-1133 (reservations).
Toulouse: Hotel-Restaurant du Vieil Alby, 25 rue Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec, 011-33-5-63-54-1469, $54-$78.
Baqueira Beret: 3-star Hotel Val de Ruda, 011-34-973-645-258, $90-$150.
SKI
Aix-3 Domaines, 011-33-5-61- 64-2886, $30 lift ticket for one day to $174 for seven.
Saint-Lary-Soulan, 011-33-825- 319-320. $35 per day to $218 for week.
Baqueira Beret, 011-34-973- 639-000, $42 per day to $206 for five.
MORE INFO
French government tourist office, franceguide.com, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 715 / Beverly Hills, Calif. 90212-2967, 1-310-271-6665. Tourist Office of Spain, okspain.org, losangeles@tourspain.es, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Ste 960 / Beverly Hills, Calif. 90211, 323-658-7188.
