How They Ski In Spain

If lavish champagne breakfasts and post-piste siestas sound like your scene, you may want to consider the Spanish Pyrenees for your next ski trip. There, in a valley cut off from the rest of the world, TOM ROBBINS discovers first-rate slopes and a distinct, beguiling blend of culturesboth traditional and modern.

- Tom Robbins

FOR AN HOUR OR MORE, we had been descending through a forest of black pine and fir, following a stream we could hear but not see. The snow lay deep, smothering the creek and turning tree stumps into giant white mushrooms. There were bears in these woods, said my guide, a young Spaniard named Peru Ortiz de Zarate, and bearded vultures that crunch on the bones of dead mountain goats. But we were making far too much noise to risk meeting these animals, laughing as we pushed past the trees that grabbed at our rucksacks and ski poles.

Finally, as if pulling back a theatre curtain, Ortiz de Zarate parted two branches to reveal our destination. Ahead was a clearing in the forest, where a wooden bridge straddled a burbling stream swelled by melting snow. Beyond it, looking like something from a fairy tale, lay a deserted hamlet named Montgarri—a place of pilgrimage since the 12 th century and once a key staging post for travellers crossing the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Today just two buildings remain, cocooned in silence and slow time: a 16 th -century church with rough stone walls and a dilapidated spire, and the former rectory alongside it.