Ski touring Andorra April 2022

Saturday

Johannes and I both arrived late on Friday evening in Barcelona and Ari made two trips out to the airport to pick us up. We left for Andorra on Saturday morning with our skis packed in the back of her dad’s car. I drove for a bit once we left the highway and we found a restaurant for lunch along the way. The weather was clearing in Andorra when we arrived, after a big dump of snow. We met Anaïs at her flat and decided to make the most of the late afternoon and head out for a ski tour. We drove away from the blue sky and sunshine that was starting to creep over Andorra, back towards the grey cloud. No matter, it was getting late in the afternoon anyway. We toured up a small road covered in powdery snow. Johannes, Milan (Anaïs’s friend) and I went ahead and turned around just before 8pm as dusk was falling. The descent on my rental skis was fast and I did my best to avoid the rocks poking through the powder. There was no base just the fresh snow that had fallen over the last 24 hours.

Sunday

The weather was much much better. With the help of the mountain guide in the ski rental shop we chose a tour that was avalanche safe. We skinned up along a snow covered access road to a mountain hut (Refugi Borda de Sorteny) where we stopped for lunch. The snow was still soft, powdery and perfect. Johannes and I went ahead dropping down to the river from the hut and crossing a small bridge. We toured up through trees following fresh tracks. Leaving the forest, we skinned up slowly towards a frozen lake. We turned around above the lake and had a great powder run back down towards the forest. We picked our way down through the forest doing sharp turns through the trees until we were out onto a gentle slope that took us back down to a small stream. Crossing at the bridge we skied back down the snow covered vehicle track to the cars. We practiced avalanche rescues at the car park with Ari and Anaïs once they returned. Johannes hid a transceiver and we tried to find it and rescue it quickly. There was a fair bit of chaos involved.

Above: The alpine rescue team receives an urgent call out in the car park.

Monday

It was another sunny day. Johannes and I headed back up to where we were yesterday with Anaï’s friend Milan. Ari went to do some downhill skiing and Anaïs headed off to work. We’d planned a longer tour than yesterday. The avalanche danger was fairly high so we were aiming to avoid steep slopes. We headed off North up a valley from the car park and skinned up to a saddle. All around was blue sky and white snow. There was still enough fresh powder snow on the ground to make skiing really enjoyable. We got to a saddle and took a short break before having a perfect run down the other side. It was such an amazing feeling. That’s what we do it for I said to Milan as we regrouped and he agreed.

We were now in France having crossed the border at the saddle. We could see a skin track heading down the valley and out of the hills. We turned right instead and skinned up through untouched snow. I wondered why there weren’t any other tracks. We continued up and around the side of the mountains aiming for another saddle. We stopped and I tried to spot it but it wasn’t so easy to see. Judging from the map it had to be the steep sidle in front of us and I remember thinking before we started that this looked like the one tricky section of the tour.

I was right. We skinned up along a steep slope towards the point where we thought we should cross. I kept sliding out of Milan’s tracks as there was a soft layer on top of hard snow below. I wasn’t sure about this. Milan reached the end of the slope needing to do a kick turn to continue up. He wasn’t sure about this. It wasn’t going to be an easy turn due to the angle and the slippery conditions. What to do? We’d already discussed taking off our skis and walking but I was unsure whether we would be able to get any grip on the slope due to the hard layer of snow underneath the powder. We didn’t have crampons, ice axe or ski crampons as we’d not been planning to do anything “hard”. I’d have had my ski crampons and crampons with me just in case but the muppets at GLS managed to mess up the postage of my skis and they hadn’t arrived. I suggested we get out our shovels, dig a hole in the snow and sit down. At least this would buy us some time. With more thought, we decided to use our shovels as ice axes and either dig steps or kick steps to the top, depending on how hard the snow was.

We carefully got out our shovels while Johannes waited on the slope further back. We’d been keeping a distance from each other, not for covid reasons but in an attempt not to load the snow pack. It was avalanche level 3 and until now the slopes had felt safe. Milan managed to get his skis onto his bag and started up the steep slope ramming his shovel into the snow for grip. I dug a hole and very carefully took my skis off my feet making sure they didn’t vanish off down the side of the mountain and then maneuvered them around onto my back pack. I moved off letting Johannes approach and I helped him sort out his gear from the relative safety of the hole. Johannes wasn’t sure about this.

I moved left along the slope, kicking steps and using my shovel to dig into the snow. The shovel worked well and made me feel much safer. We slowly moved up, slightly left of the line Milan had taken through a patch of rocks. It was a good feeling to be over the lip and on the flat saddle. We took our skins off and edged out across the reasonably steep slope one at a time. Then it was time for some sweeping turns in amazing powder. We skied down a narrow couloir and then had more sweeping turns until we were on the flat. We crossed a stream and carefully skied and walked through trees before the final gentle descent to the Rifugio where we’d eaten the day before. The cold beer tasted very good and we toasted to a safe return out of the mountains. We skied the access road back down to the car. The snow was melting rapidly in the sunny weather and there were patches of stones that had been covered by snow the day before.

Back at the flat, we packed up and drove back to Barcelona in the evening.