Andorra's wild side: off-piste challenges and foodie adventures

Off-piste skier in Grandvalira
As well as cheap and cheerful options for beginners, Andorra also has great freeriding appeal

You’re at a chalet-hotel’s quiz night and are faced with this question: “Which European stop on the Junior Freeride World Tour has a special lift map for freeriders but is also the location of a five-star hotel frequented by a four-time Champions League winning footballer?” In the middle of the argument about whether it’s Verbier or St Moritz, try throwing in “Soldeu, Andorra” and wait for the reaction – first laughter, then shock when it turns out you are right.

Strictly speaking, Soldeu is just one of the resorts that are part of the 193km Grandvalira ski area, along with Encamp, just east of the capital Andorra la Vella, and (continuing east) Canillo, El Tarter, Grau Roig and Pas de la Casa. Soldeu is in the middle, between El Tarter and Grau Roig.

Grandvalira, along with the rest of Andorra, has a great reputation for affordability and instruction, with group classes taught by native English speakers. The flipside is that if riders improve their technique and income, they tend to feel they’ve graduated from Andorra to the Alps and often don’t return.

After a 20-year break, I was lured back in April with the promise of spring-snow freeriding and calçots (more of which later) by a friend I’d last skied with in France’s cult freeriding resort La Grave, so it had a lot to live up to. And sure, Grandvalira has some pistes, particularly just above El Tarter, which are full of beginners and intermediates buzzing around like level 10 of the arcade game Galaxian. But we travelled over to L’Espiolets, above Soldeu, to meet with Scottish instructor Stuart Fleming from the Freeride Center (sic).

Although the Center is part of the Escola d’Esqui Grandvalira, its instructors wear different clothes and its office is separate. That base is where clients can collect freeride skis and avalanche rescue kit (transceiver, shovel probe), which are included in the price of the session.

We start our half day by heading over to Pas de la Casa, using express chairs and looping around the sidecountry – smooth pitches and natural halfpipes – that flanks the Directa II and Jordi Anglès pistes.

Afterwards, Stuart points out Pic Blanc, a hikeable ridge that accesses some of the best off-piste. The northeast-facing options are good, but Stuart says the southwest-facing Grau Roig side is “an awesome face with good snow, because it’s shielded from the sun by other mountains till the afternoon”. Saving our climbing legs for a promised adventure the following day, we opt instead for a bowl to the side of a terrifying-looking speed-skiing piste. Even though our drop-in is just as steep, at least we get to turn.

We meander our way back into the Soldeu sector, finding pockets of soft spring snow wherever we go. Beneath Pic Cubil we ride open terrain with a few trees to make things more interesting and finally, the most enjoyable section – the large gladed bowl of Solana, just above the resort centre, covered in small kickers created by the growth of dwarf avets de nadal (Christmas tree firs).

This is one of the “freeride zones” marked in pink and graded blue, red or black on a specific map, which can be found on the resort’s app. However, not everything Stuart finds is on there, and the session transforms the whole Grandvalira area into a freeride playground. There’s nothing epic, although that would be possible in a longer session and with more snow, but we barely use a piste.

An expedition with the Freeride Center
An expedition with the Freeride Center Credit: Daniele Molineris

The following day, we decide to take our rejection of groomed snow to the next level and go touring. Within the bounds of Grandvalira, we could follow the marked “mountain ski circuits” – routes up and down, described on the same map as the freeride zones. Many of them start with a trek across the frozen Llac de Pessons, in the Grau Roig sector, before offering different variations – both wooded and open terrain – around Pic Alt de Cubil, the off-piste mountain where the athletes of the Junior Freeride World Tour compete annually.

We decide to take advantage of the fact that ski touring doesn’t require an actual ski resort and head to the Ransol valley, a 15-minute drive from El Tarter. For our half-day tour, we are led by Toní Rodriguez, head of the Grandvalira ski school, and his dog Luca, whose favourite pastime is chasing descending skiers, of which there are quite a few – this is a popular area for locals. “There’s lots of variety here,” Toní says. “It’s mostly only 30 degrees of steepness, so quite avalanche-secure, and you can reach a peak after only a couple of hours’ climb.”

We gently and gradually gain altitude, picking our way through fir trees and fording a stream, before a final steeper section, where kick turns are required, before reaching a ridge with views back down the valley and across waves of white to higher peaks by the French border. For a small country, with quite a few large-ish towns, it’s surprising how quickly we find ourselves in a beautiful, remote mountainscape. The descent, as so often with ski mountaineering, is a freeform dash that’s over in minutes.

OK, so I’m convinced on one score – Andorra isn’t just for beginners. What about the other common assumption those invested in Andorran tourism have tried to dispel, that it’s a cheap-as-chips booze-cruise destination? Well, thanks to duty-free prices, the main street running through Soldeu is still populated by the odd staggering drunk, but what resort isn’t? It also houses the five-star Hermitage, which opened in 2006, frequented by footballer Lionel Messi and other Barcelona players, and the four-star sister hotel Sport next door. Both establishments share the Sport’s Wellness Mountain Spa.

The Áliga piste in Soldeu
The Áliga piste in Soldeu is used for World Cup races Credit: Sergi Perez

There are eight restaurants in the hotel complex, including a branch of Michelin-starred Japanese chef Hideki Matsuhisa’s Barcelona place, Koy Shunka. Nandu Jubany, the Michelin-starred Catalan chef from Can Jubany, west of Girona, serves his tasting menu at Origen. He also heads up the more casual restaurant Sol i Neu, where the New Basque approach to traditional Catalan and Andorran specialities transforms trinxat (bubble and squeak with bacon and black pudding), pigeon rice or pig’s ear with escarole leaves into elegant, delicate dishes.

There are also several independent, traditional restaurants known as bordas, from the word for barn, along the road that runs through the Grandvalira resorts. La Llar de l’Artesa in Soldeu is crammed with bric-a brac and has a sophisticated wine list, notably organic and biodynamic wines and a great selection from Rioja and Ribera del Duero. We eat there one night and opt for a Vega Sicilia Alión, a full-bodied Tempranillo with complex aromas, which pairs beautifully with the huge steak sizzling on the original wood-fired grill in the corner.

The following day, the sight of fire leads us to the greatest gourmet experience of all in Andorra. During a day trip to the linked resorts of Pal and Arinsal, a 25km/45-minute transfer from Soldeu or El Tarter, we see flames rising from a barbecue outside El Moli de la Plaça (known as Molly’s) in Arinsal. Restaurateur Giles Boyce, a Brit who has immersed himself in Catalan food for 20 years, is cooking calçots, which look like giant spring onions. They’re not cooked over gently glowing charcoal but right in the flame, Giles explains: “The outer layer chars and the inside steams in the intense heat.”

Popping out the delicately flavoured inner flesh, dipping it in rich romesco sauce (made with almonds and sweet red peppers), and dangling it into your mouth before washing it down with red wine, is a decadent, hedonistic and addictive thrill you don’t expect from a vegetable dish.

During my time in Andorra, there are more food and drink surprises – in Grandvalira, for example, I come across a Veuve Clicquot VIP champagne terrace (not the lager-lager drinking experience I was expecting) and a roving street-food truck on a piste-basher. I never thought I’d say it, but Andorra is a hipster-friendly hashtag-foodie backcountry powderday destination. Brace yourself, Instagram.

Soldeu
The resort of Soldeu

Need to know

Neilson offers seven nights in the Neilson Hotel Del Clos in El Tarter from £469, half board (breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner each day); or in the Sport Hotel, Soldeu, from £755 on a half board basis. Price includes flights, transfers and Mountain Experts guiding and coaching. Instruction and guiding with the Freeride Center is €42 per person for three hours, but a two‑hour introductory session is free for Neilson customers as part of the Mountain Expert programme. A day’s ski touring costs from around €100, depending on location and equipment. A one-day ski pass for Pal‑Arinsal costs €36.10, but there are no direct buses from Soldeu – it’s a 45-minute taxi ride.

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