The Pyrenees are enjoying their best conditions of what, up to now, has been a rather sub-par season in terms of snowfall and open terrain.
A warm autumn with little natural snowfall and temperatures too high for snowmaking started things off badly last November and resorts finally opened after a good snowfall around December 10th, a fortnight later than hoped and missing a key public holiday period in the region at the start of December.
Since then few areas have managed to open all of their terrain with the biggest resorts still failing to do so with a month of the season left.
However March has been snowier in the Pyrenees than many other parts of Europe and this week has seen the first resorts reach 2 metre base depths on the French side of the mountains, whilst the region's largest area, Andorra's Grandvalira, which incorporates Soldeu-El Tarter, Pas de la Casa and now most other centres in the principality has passed 200km of slopes open, about 95% of its slopes, for the first time.
Ski areas across the Pyrenees are reporting excellent, powder conditions too, the only thing for freeriders to be aware of is an increased avalanche danger to level 3 ("considerable") on the scale to 5 in many areas. Baqueira Beret pictured.