France
1 / 21Grand Tourmalet/Pic du Midi - La Mongie/Barèges in Bagnères-de-Bigorre and Argelès-Gazost, France. Elevation: 1,250 - 2,500 m.
Trail information
Grand Tourmalet is the largest area in the French Pyrenees, and the Col du Tourmalet, familiar from the Tour de France, runs right through the middle of it: the road closes in winter while the pistes follow it, joining La Mongie on one side to Barèges on the other. Barèges is an old thermal town where officers of the royal army came to treat their wounds as far back as the seventeenth century. From La Mongie a cable car climbs to the Pic du Midi de Bigorre at 2,877 m and its observatory; there are no marked runs from the summit, only guided freeride descents. The altitudes are respectable for the Pyrenees, but snowmaking covers almost everything.
Maps
Lifts
- 3Aerial trams
- 1Gondola lifts
- 14Chairlifts
- 12T-bars and platters
- 3Magic carpets
Video
Contacts and opening hours
Average monthly snowfall at Grand Tourmalet/Pic du Midi - La Mongie/Barèges
Snowfall per month - cm. Below each bar - how many days it snowed that month. Observation data for the last 3 completed seasons.
Accommodation
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La Mongie
What visitors say about the resort
The praise is for the size and the price: this is the largest area in the Pyrenees with over 1,200 metres of vertical, and everything from the pass to a coffee on the mountain costs about half what it would in the Alps. Reviewers note the variety: La Mongie lies above the tree line, Barèges in the forest, and there are nursery meadows, long blues and serious blacks. Strong skiers come for the off-piste, including from the Pic du Midi, which hosts freeride World Cup rounds.
Snow draws the criticism: Grand Tourmalet is less dependable than its Pyrenean neighbours, and mild winters show it. The second complaint is congestion on the blue runs in the holidays. Some visitors feel that for this money the piste condition could be more consistent.
An editorial summary of public reviews on specialist sites. This is not a visitor review: we retell what is written about the resort most often, both praise and criticism.
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