Winter & Ski Home Ski Resort Reviews Pyrénées Saint-Lary Soulan

Great (and improving) family skiing...

The Comeblanque chairlift hauls skiers to and from the Lac d'Oule through unspoilt pine forest.

Close (but unconnected) to Piau Engaly, the family ski station of Saint Lary Soulan is situated in the Aure valley of the central French Pyrénées. Although a long drive from the Channel, access is relatively simple from Pau and Toulouse airports (or Tarbes TGV for rail travellers) and the village has long been a popular four-season destination for both French and Spanish visitors.

The scenery brings a startling backdrop to skiing here, and there are some sheltered wooded runs lower down.

Saint-Lary’s balanced selection of groomed pistes will appeal to a wide variety of skiers, making it a sound choice for mixed-ability groups, as long as no-one is looking for anything too demanding. There’s also a steadily expanding snow-park for snowboarders and freestylers. Access to the principal on-mountain departure point of Pla d’Adet 1700 was until recently via a cable-car, which created long queues during peak periods and forced many skiers to bus up to the less convenient area of Saint-Lary Espiaube 1600. However the 2010/11 season saw a long-awaited major increase in skier capacity with the opening of a new high-speed gondola lift – welcome news indeed.

On-mountain accommodation is quite limited, so most visitors opt to stay in the more traditional setting of the old village down in the valley. With year-round popularity, Saint-Lary is not overly focused on affordable, volume ski-apartment accommodation. Instead, traditional-style hotels cater for French families on a budget with solid value demi-pension deals. The less financially-constrained, on the other hand, have a good choice of premium accommodation with dining to match.

Saint-Lary’s ESF ski school provides a solid, reassuring start for new skiers of all ages.

Francophile skiers who value an authentic French experience, in a place with a genuinely welcoming attitude to visitors. You'll rub shoulders with generations of contented French families from western France, who have fierce loyalties to ‘their’ ski area. It all makes for a relaxed time, both on and off the mountain. As for the skiing, as well as safe beginner and early-intermediate areas, there’s rather more for cruising fans to explore than you might imagine – and the setting will change your mind if you think that you’ll be sacrificing really great mountain scenery by not heading to the Alps.

For the first-time visitor, the approach to Saint-Lary Soulan sends a clear message: whatever you were imagining, this is serious mountain country. It also confirms that the multitude of villages and hamlets located down in the valleys retain all their traditional charm, and everything (apart from the mountains) is on a reassuringly human scale. Welcome to the Hautes-Pyrénées.

Not surprisingly, then, the village of Saint-Lary looks unlike any ski station we’ve seen in the Alps, an impression underlined by the relatively few British voices to be overheard on the café terraces. Traditional Pyrenean timber and stone architecture, combined with a sheltered, sunny location, make this an attractive place to be, a fact well-known to generations of loyal French visitors plus those who regularly drive from across the nearby border with Spain.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain...

In the village itself there’s no front-de-neige, and few obvious signs of ski activity apart from a large cable-car station. Behind the thermal spa, however, is a new high-speed gondola lift, centrepiece of a 14-million Euro investment programme to streamline skier access from the valley up to Pla d’Adet 1700. The altitude is a vital asset, and at times when there’s little sign of snow down in the village, the vast white landscape which is suddenly revealed as you crest the final ridge produces quite a sigh of relief on the haul up.

The definitive family ski station, Saint-Lary is a favourite for all generations and abilities.

From the lift arrival point a brief uphill trudge brings us to the point where we can finally snap into our skis and glide past the debutant meeting points to the Soume de Matte chairlift, which deposits us onto the Blue-graded Corniche 2 piste. It’s a blast, as we sample some of Saint-Lary 1900’s rewarding intermediate terrain all the way down to the Tortes chair. This second onward haul up to 2320m provides the gateway to a wealth of possibilities, in a vast, sheltered bowl above the Vallon du Portet, whose terrain tops off at a respectable 2515m.

The Perfect Spot

While longer hauls are handled by efficient chairlifts, access to the highest terrain in this sector is by drag-lifts, which is a pity as it must curb less-confident skiers’ inclination to explore the area’s full potential. And it’s well worth getting to the high points, not least to feel yourself on top of a sizeable chunk of the Parc National des Pyrénées.

“access to the highest terrain in this sector is
by drag-lifts...”

Not that any of the terrain here is exactly low, as a drop down through pine forest to the Lac d’Oule (1820m) proves. This worthwhile decent emerges beside the sunny terrace of the Chalet de l’Oule, whose location overlooking the lake (frozen for much of the winter) makes this the perfect spot in which to stop for a lunchtime refuelling break.

We do just that and emerge sated, an ideal mood in which to contemplate the wooded scenery on the relaxed ride back up to the Vallon du Portet.

A safe, wide cruise down to the Vallon du Portet, Laint-Lary 2400.

Once there we schusse onward to the Saboures chairlift, for the ride over the ridge to Tourette (2320m). From here we take the wayward Balcon Moucades piste for a spot of Blue-graded cruising (with a narrow tunnel thrown in along the way) and an eventual connection with the Red-graded Mirabelle II. The entertainment continues as we drop a little more steeply all the way down to the Espiaube area (1900m). It’s the kind of run which adds substance (and distance) to Saint-Lary’s skiing, and one we’ll definitely ski again sometime.

Enforced group pause on the Palombes piste, above the 2320m Tourette sector.

Although we’ve reached the terminus for the shuttle bus back to the village (via the Pla d’Adet) we ride the Lita chair back up to the Rhodos Red piste. This proves to be an exhillarating run, climaxing with a final swoop through the tree-line, and as we wind our way down on the wooded tracks with smiles on our faces, we’re reminded of times skiing similar terrain in far away British Columbia. It’s an appealing image, and one of the high spots of Saint-Lary. Others include the vast mountain views which ramp up the entertainment value of even the most benign Blue connector runs. Overall Saint-Lary is a fun place – but we can’t help thinking it would be even more so with the option of a lift-pass to take in higher-altitude Piau-Engaly, which lies just a tantalizingly short drive further up the valley...

© Roger Moss