La Cuniacha animal park keeps animals that are or were once indigenous to the Pyrenees. They’ve lots of rare species including european lynx, bison, iberan ibex, wolves and lots of different types of chamois and deer. It’s a great place to visit any time of year but with the heavy snows we’ve had recently we visited the park on snowshoes which was just fantastic.
Isabel's first trip to La Cuniacha
Isabel hadn’t been to the park before and was very excited by the close encouters with deer, lynx and ibex!
Iberian ibex in the snow
Ibex have huge curled horns. Although the Iberian version still lives in several ranges the Pyrenean sub-species became extinct after the final female was killed by a tree falling on her during a storm in the late 90’s. A small herd of males lingered on in the Ordesa National Park until 2002 when they finally died out. Continue reading →
Snow finally arrived to the Pyrenees last week so we took advantage of some great weather Saturday to get out onto the snow for the first time this season. Rafa and I headed up to the border at Portalet which is a great place for snow-shoeing, skiing and generally messing around on the white stuff to do the peak of Canal Roya (2231m).
Rafa at Portalet at the start of the day
We took our snow shoes in the boot but from the car the snow looked quite thin with a lot of areas cleared by the wind so we headed off just in boots. After half an hour we realised this was a bit of a mistake as we made our way through plenty of thigh deep drifts!
Hannah (who many of our guests will have met guiding here over the past two summers) and her partner Ken have been over for New Years doing some snow shoeing and trying their hand at ski touring. Snow conditions aren’t great at the moment and we’ve not had a huge quantity of snow but they still have had some great days out.
Snowshoeing towards the Col des Arazures
The area around Portalet is always a good bet when the snow’s not so good and there are a whole load of peaks that you can do from there – it’s like a winter playground!
It was Ken’s first taste of ski touring and he’s caught the bug already! You can read more about Hannah and Ken’s adventures on their excellent Apple Mountaineering blog.
At the peak of Cuyaralet with Pico Anayet in the background
The area around Col de Portalet is a winter playground with lots of excellent routes for snowshoeing, ski touring and for the younger ones some fantastic sledging! It’s quite high and well protected from the wind so it’s snow sure even in times when there’s not too much of the white stuff around.
Took Dave up to the peak of Cuyaralet (2286m) which is just into France – the route actually starts from the border post. The weather forescast wasn’t great making Cuyaralet a good choice of peak as it’s not a long day and nav back to the road is nice and easy in case of a white out!
Last week went snowshoeing to an area called Aguas Tuertas (twisted waters) with the Sabiñanigo mountain club – a beautiful area that I’d not visited before. Lying between the valleys of Hecho and Canfranc it’s a large flat col that a stream meanders through giving the area it’s name.
La Cuniacha animal park keeps animals that are or were once indigenous to the Pyrenees. They’ve lots of rare species including european lynx, bison, iberan ibex, wolves and lots of different types of chamois and deer. It’s a great place to visit any time of year but with the heavy snows we’ve had recently we visited the park on snowshoes which was just fantastic.
Hannah (who many of our guests will have met guiding here over the past two summers) and her partner Ken have been over for New Years doing some snow shoeing and trying their hand at ski touring. Snow conditions aren’t great at the moment and we’ve not had a huge quantity of snow but they still have had some great days out.
