Colomers hut to Arties valley via the north face of Montardo
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 8.53 mi
- Elevation gain
- 2,904 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Difficult
- Elevation loss
- 5,456 ft
- Max elevation
- 9,304 ft
- TrailRank
- 32
- Min elevation
- 4,394 ft
- Trail type
- One Way
- Coordinates
- 466
- Uploaded
- March 16, 2014
- Recorded
- March 2014
near Vaqueira-Beret, Catalunya (España)
Viewed 1146 times, downloaded 59 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
From the Colomers hut, following the normal route across the Port de Caldes 2410m and on to the summit of Montardo 2833m. You can reverse this route to return to the hut or ski down the normal route via the Restanca hut to get to the Arties valley. But more interesting is to do this line down the 'hidden canal' onto the north face of Montardo.
The canal entrance is not obvious, it is easy to ski too low and to get misled by a snow bowl down on skiers right of the correct entrance. Later in spring you may get stuck with a band of jagged rock across the top of the canal. The canal is about 40 degrees, maybe 200 metres in height and not very difficult to ski (or to side-slip!).
Below the canal you can to out on skiers left to ski down a natural half pipe - great fun, or you go can skiers right and traverse across to steeper but avalanche-prone slopes leading directly down the next snow bowl.
Below is the forest from hell! Do not ski straight down, you want to traverse out to the right, going right and down until you reach the forest track that goes round to the east side of Montardo. We were lucky enough to have tracks to follow, and we kept our skis on all the way, so this is a good GPS line to escape through the forest, although it may not seem like it when you are in there!
The canal entrance is not obvious, it is easy to ski too low and to get misled by a snow bowl down on skiers right of the correct entrance. Later in spring you may get stuck with a band of jagged rock across the top of the canal. The canal is about 40 degrees, maybe 200 metres in height and not very difficult to ski (or to side-slip!).
Below the canal you can to out on skiers left to ski down a natural half pipe - great fun, or you go can skiers right and traverse across to steeper but avalanche-prone slopes leading directly down the next snow bowl.
Below is the forest from hell! Do not ski straight down, you want to traverse out to the right, going right and down until you reach the forest track that goes round to the east side of Montardo. We were lucky enough to have tracks to follow, and we kept our skis on all the way, so this is a good GPS line to escape through the forest, although it may not seem like it when you are in there!
Comments (2)
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Where does it end up?
It ends up on the road that runs up the Arties valley, the camino de Valarties. We had two cars, so we skied down to the car we'd left in the valley. But you could also start from that valley and do this descent in a one (fast) or two day loop via the Restanca hut.