Last week we had a beautiful afternoon of ski touring with my American friend Nick. After a period of bad weather and snow, some sun shining days always come in our mountains!!

Starting from Astún ski resort in Aragon Valley, we chose to follow one classical summer and winter itinerary that goes up to Ibon de Escalar, a small mountain lake in a peaceful surrounding, despite its proximity to the ski area.

View to the Aspe mountains from the highest point of our itinerary.

Right from the start we had to take off most of our clothing layers as we climbed a south face under a strong shinning sun. The snow was quite heavy and made our progression rather slow but we could reach the small frozen lake in more or less one hour.

Astún ski resort in Valle de Aragón

Then we decided to carry on up to Col des Moines just on French border, in order to enjoy the beautiful winter views of peak de Midi d’Ossau.

Nick reaching Col des Moines (2168m).

Finally we had a steep and enjoyable – although rather technical… – downhill skiing on a bit heavy but fresh snow. A perfect training before some more intense ski touring activities in the next weeks!!