Barèges ski resort

About Barèges

Location:

Barèges is located in the Hautes-Pyrénées region of southwest France, at the foot of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre Mountain, close to the Spanish border.

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Slopes

On the slopes

The slopes at Barèges are linked to those of neighbour La Mongie, a modern purpose built resort with slopeside accommodation. These twin resorts form the Grand Tourmalet ski area, the largest in the French Pyrenees with 100km (62 miles) of pistes.

The slopes vary like the resorts, with those on the Barèges side generally pretty, tree-lined descents, and those on the higher La Mongie sector snowy, open and treeless. This means the region has something for all ability levels and tastes, including long descents, freestyle and freeride areas and the famous off-piste descent from the Pic du Midi.

This is a good resort for beginners, with well-designed nursery slopes at La Laquette accessed by gondola. From here, novices can explore seven beginner slopes and, once confident, there are plenty of harder green and blue runs on which to progress.

Intermediates will find that most of the terrain suits them, with the Lienz Valley a particularly appealing sector with its pretty runs that carve through woodland.

There are seven groomed black runs – the most challenging being the 2.9km-long (1.8 miles) Coume d'Ayre – but the crowning jewel for expert skiers will be to ski Pic du Midi which offers an off-piste route down a challenging 1,700 vertical metres (5,580ft) to the bottom, where a shuttle bus links to La Mongie.

For freestyle skiers and boarders, the Star Park offers five different courses with a line for everyone from beginner to pro.