It’s been snowing heavily over the last week in the Pyrenees and yesterday got out on the snowshoes for the first time this season with Rafa and Emilio. We headed up to the ski station of Formigal and set out from there. Sunny lower down but cloudy with a freezing wind higher up. Beautiful scenery though and great to see the mountains covered in snow again – every year the first time out on the snow is special.

Rafa and Emilio heading out from Formigal

There’s plenty of snow around in the Portalet and Anayet area of Formigal and and the ski station is due to open this Friday. Sextas has suffered from the really high winds we’ve been having which has swept most of the pistes clear of snow there. Plenty of deep drifts in the sheltered spots though!

Emilio showing how deep the powder was….

We headed up to a ridge with one side pretty bare and the lee side with beautiful deep powder.

Rafa heading up to the ridge

On the descent – great powder

Emilio and Rafa on the ridge

With the sun poking out from the clouds we saw lots of sunbows. Sometimes completely circular which are great to see.

A sunbow

This was a rare double sunbow which was really strong for quite a while.

A double sunbow

Great day out. Thanks to Rafa and Emilio for coming along. Looking forward to getting the ski’s out later this week.