Formigal, Spanish Pyrenees, Dec 22

A snowHead

For the last few years we have driven to El Tarter in Andorra, but now the children are getting older and better I wanted the ability for them to go off by themselves but remain in mobile phone range. As Andorra is non-EU and phone charges are extortionate, I thought we’d try the other big Pyrenees resorts of Baqueira-Beret or Formigal-Panticosa, and we went for Formigal (also as it is two hours’ shorter drive from Lisbon and we’re now going one way in one day, so shortening that day is quite important for us). Daughters had complained about sharing a sofa bed last time so I splashed out on two rooms in a hotel, then €17/day extra for covered parking as my car isn’t new and I wanted a hassle-free getaway on the final morning. I speak nearly no Spanish so I wasn’t very good at looking for discount packages. I figured once I actually knew the resort I could hunt for bargain apartments next time.

In summary: it’s unlikely we’ll return, at least in December. Very little snow, loud guests and squeaky wooden floors at the hotel (making us tired and grumpy!), the resort was smaller than expected (Panticosa apparently fully closed and several runs in Formigal not open didn’t help), and getting a nice meal seemed a real challenge. Lots of relatively short runs. I’d say the place is generally aimed at the younger skier, or the long weekend skier, neither of which is us.

Day 0: Split the journey and stayed with friends in Madrid as usual. Satnav then said only 4 hours to resort, so a relatively relaxed drive. I notice the approach road is narrower than to El Tarter, with worse quality surfacing, might well need chains in bad weather (ET is passed by a main road, cleared within hours, no need for chains except when it truly dumps). Formigal town looks nice at first glance. Hotel has nearly no double beds but all twins, no kettle in room, very squeaky wooden floors, not great sound insulation in walls. Plenty of parking outside, about 30 covered places.

Skis rented from the shop recommended by the hotel with 10% discount. They offered 4 different packages (basic, standard, advanced, expert); the family got standard and I got advanced but they all looked a bit battered TBH. I got Head Core CX. Cannot get lift pass from ski hire place or hotel, only directly from bottom of lift, implying no discounts or perhaps I looked in the wrong place. Walked skis and boots back to hotel locker. Had dinner in the hotel restaurant; unimpressed. Seems to try hard to be trendy/classy, but not sure the quality matches their intention (or prices).

Day 1: Hotel breakfast had a good spread but was mainly cold even when it should be hot.
Free hotel minibus takes us to Sextas (bottom of Sallent chair) in about 4 mins. Maybe 6-700m by foot, I really wouldn’t fancy walking it in boots with skis. Perhaps I should have looked at lockers at the base, but didn’t, so we always waited for the hotel bus (sometimes 20mins!). Bought passes @€52/day. From the base I see just grass and rocks, nearly no snow except cannon-made for the pistes back down. Base is approx 1500m altitude, snowline more like 1650m but by the top of the lift all is white. On Day 1 I came over a ridge to find an instructor stopped with a class, oh yeah great standards here... The snow is generally thin with ice under. There are hardly any trees in the resort, all is open skiing. The Sarrios 2-man lift was really slow (apparently it’s the oldest in the resort!), noted to take the 6-man Lanuza next time. Found some nice reds, declined Canal (black, “experts only!”) and went down Lapazuso instead. Had coffee at 11 together with lots of ski rats, note to go at 1030 to avoid them next time! Lunch at 1230 in Anayet base, massive chicken leg (a bit greasy) and fries. No Wi-Fi in cafe.

After lunch stayed in Anayet bowl/valley on blues and reds getting our style back until 3pm, then made our way back to watch the world cup final on big screens outside, taking our hotel bus back at half time. Then out to get wife’s skis and look for nice food. Nothing obvious but the limited menu in Hotel Saliecho was nice.

Day 2: Awful night sleep after 100 (?) teens arrived and lodged on the thin wooden floor above us; thump thump, shout, squeak squeak, finally asleep after 3am, canceled my alarm for 0730 but my eager daughters didn’t. Breakfast mainly lukewarm again. Booked a private lesson for 14YO and me, €60 ph. Nice Spanish lady gave us some good drills, always good to have lessons at the start to rebuild confidence. 14YO was then blasting down slopes in the afternoon! She said that most main resorts had school trips now, and that this year is bad for snow in Formigal, Not good lunch at Anayet again. Finished at 1530.

Hotel changed our room to different wing not under the teen terrors, got one of the few double beds, on ground level with concrete floor, no squeaking as we walk - yay!

By now I’m starting to understand the layout of the resort, 4 parallel valleys with not particularly long runs down any of them, and eventually I realise that’s one of the frustrations, you can’t really go a “long way” down any of them without having to go up (or across and up) on a lift again. I really want to like this place but it is making it very difficult for me. Those valleys are partly joined by a free bus, that seems to go Formigal town centre to Sextas base, to Anayet, and back again, coming approx every 15 mins. I only used it once, generally to avoid having to walk 400m from Formigal centre to our hotel, but it seems fine. The rules are that masks are worn on public transport, which I wasn’t aware of, but the driver let me on as the bus was empty anyway. (Should have used buff, d’oh!)

The next 3 days were slightly better as we started to understand which were the better runs, and how to ski them, ie taking careful note of the pattern of the sun and avoiding the scrapy / icy ones in the morning and the thick sludgy ones in the afternoon. Barely an inch of snow all week plus rain for 2-3 evenings and daytime (even nighttime!) temps above 0C didn’t make the snow better. A “restaurant” at the bottom of Sarrios was apparently not going to open (though on later days we went over on the chair to Anayet and saw a door open?!) so we stuck to Anayet and tried the reheated pasta bol and on the last day the grilled pork steaks and chips – they were more reasonable. Didn’t make much effort to find a nice eatery in town for the evening as we don’t eat much, but there didn’t seem to be much choice.

16YO daughter, now too good for the rest of us after awesome instruction in Switzerland 3 years ago, complained she was bored, so I bought a 2-hour private lesson and met her at the end. Instead of doing fun stuff or tricks she was told her turns weren’t very clean and got two hours on those. I’ll let you imagine the reaction. Though normally she has a big mouth, so I’m surprised she didn’t object at the time.

On the last day three of us went out as wife wanted to rest her knees. Came down from the top of Sarrios, which gets a lot of wind so is scrapy, and the younger and I broke left for the red in parallel (elder; “nah, don’t like it”). Found a couple of steep pitches with not enough snow, first my daughter slid down two thirds of one on her back – but giggled – then I went down the last bit of another in similar fashion. A discussion at lunchtime suggested that as it was last day, we’d try for the short bumpy black Le Canal, which is in sun so soft moguls and looked like a goer, but even getting down a blue to get to it my legs simply refused to function whatever my brain might have commanded, so I chose discretion over valour and declined. 16YO also didn’t want to. 14YO shrugged, got on the chair, went up, and came down it. Fell once but nothing dramatic. I was nervous as it was just a steep hillside with a winding series of black flags to keep skiers away from major rock drops, but I was really impressed with her. We had a few more runs and called it a day just after 3pm.

I feel a lot of this is unduly negative and I try to understand why, with comments above. All staff (hotel, ski shop, bus drivers etc) were really wonderful, friendly, helpful; no complaints there. I have to recognise that tired legs, much more tired than I’d expected, and not great technique do not help the tired mind. I really tried to not have high expectations at the start, maintaining this would be an experiment rather than a great ski holiday; we’re they met? But I hope there’s enough info here for those of you interested to separate the emotion from the data, and decide if it looks good for you. I think with more snow, more fitness and maybe a couple more private lessons it would be a LOT better, and with a couple of nice eating options on the mountain we might have had a good week. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

A snowHead

@Orange200, great report - thanks.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Really interesting to read. Food for thought as it held some intrigue before!

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Enjoyed that report! Visited Formigal (and Cerler) some years ago in fairly-decent snow. But I've ever felt the need to return... which says all you need to know. Great to explore/tick off, but not one for more than once in my view.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Went 30+ years ago as a kid. Can't remember much.

Looking at the piste map/resort stats it must be one of the largest non-alps resorts in Europe.

You'll need to Register first of course.

As I said, didn’t help that several runs plus Panticosa (snigger, does that mean PantyThings?) were closed, but it certainly didn’t feel big. And forget the advertised inclusion of Cerler in the group, apparently that’s a good 2.5h drive away.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Orange200, Thanks for the interesting, if somewhat disappointing report. We're staying Feb half term in Sallent with family - 3 young kids two on second ski week one in first - and had been planning to use Panticosa. We have Brittany ferries tickets from COVID times so needing something in shooting distance from Bilbao that they'll be manageable for drive. That cuts out anything east Pyrenees. Not liking the snow reports. Plenty of time of course but said same last year with Italy and it never arrived leaving artificial only. Did they say anything about Panticosa opening if snow arrives?

Do have option of bailing and going to Cauterets on French side instead. Been there before and like it but wanted to try Spain and accomodation there for 5 is tricky at reasonable price.

After all it is free

Interesting, but grumbles about the hotel are useless unless you name it.... unless of course every hotel there has squeaky floors.

@Deibitto, if you have learners then I understood that Formigal is better than Panticosa, the latter was a more advanced resort apparently (on phone now, can’t check the map!). It certainly has a magic carpet, I think by Anayet which you can drive to and park at directly.
@adithorp, I’ve hardly seen Formigal mentioned here in 5 years or more so I didn’t think it would be worth mentioning, and I felt a bit guilty as people were very nice. If anyone wants to know, ask.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I learnt to ski in Panticosa, sadly now 40 years ago. It was great, cheap and wonderful value. We went up to the road to the big and sophisticated resort - Formigal, for a day, which was even better. We went back another year and the snow was so deep on one drag lift the cables were actually running along the snow. I continued skiing in the Pyrenees for a few years and then fortunately or unfortunately discovered big alpine ski resorts, which rather spoilt things. I haven’t been back since, but have a hankering to do so. I think wherever you go in the world you have to accept that geographically and culturally things are different. Skiing in Glencoe is wonderful, but not if you expect it to be like St. Moritz. I like the occasional day trip to Areche, although I normally ski in Tignes. They are not very far apart as the crow flies and clearly in the same country, but culturally there is a huge void.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I think most weather experts agree the snow was deeper everywhere 40 years ago Eh oh!

snow reports

@Orange200, Can you please help on the lift pass pricing? Online only seems to be in Spanish and to best my reading is offering no discount for a 5 day pass on 5x individual days which makes it *very* expensive. Find it hard to believe this is correct...

@Deibitto, that’s one of the few things I don’t have, but looking at what I have, it could be the case. I went to the lift base and asked for 3 passes for 5 days, and my bank statement says I made a payment of €804. A photo of screens above the windows says €54 per day. 54x15 is 810.
Also just found a site where they say 10 days of your choosing is €521. But that site also gives prices per day, for January, showing some peak pricing, with certain days falling to €48.8 and even €44.7. Formigal-Panticosa.com/comprar-forfait-formigal-panticoss.
You get a card with your name printed on it, but no one asked me to show it.

You know it makes sense.

@Orange200, Thanks, appreciate reply. Seems the figure is right then. Pretty disappointing as I have 3 under 10s and this destroys the benefit of low prices relative to places in Alps where kids go free with an adult pass. Think will switch booking to Luz Ardiden in France where passes will be over 300 Euros less in total with other costs similar.

Snowing on cams today and hopefully getting colder from next week so fingers crossed it's skiing not hiking!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Help!!

Formigal, Spanish Pyrenees, Dec 22

snowHeads Forum Index >>> Resort Reviews and Trip Reports