It has not been the premiere dreamed of by the snow business, but it has been a decent enough ski curtain raiser. Baqueira Beret has been the first resort in Spain to open its doors in the 2023-2024 season. He did it yesterday with around 2,300 skiers, points out Xavi Ubeira, commercial director of the Aranese resort. Visitors who found these tracks in better conditions than expected. 30 kilometers were opened in the Baqueira area and almost a dozen ski lifts. Enough, agreed many of those morning skiers, who are already bitten by the snow bug. The snow, spring powder, with a thickness that at the highest elevations was about 35 centimeters. And this white layer is increasing thanks to the low temperatures that allowed, yesterday morning and also these last few days, to have the artificial snow cannons running.
This early opening takes on special importance this season, as it allows the doors to open on the last weekend of November in a year that is on track to be the driest on record. Now all eyes in the sector are already on the Constitución bridge, when it is hoped that they can open the rest of the stations. But for that it needs to snow a lot more. Ubeira pointed out that a storm is coming in on Tuesday that is expected to leave more precipitation in the Pyrenees.
These expected snowfalls are encouraging, on the other hand, the reservations facing the bridge, according to different managers of hotels located at the foot of the slopes and owners of tourist apartments. The ski business is played a lot this first week of December, in which it can invoice, if the stars align, between 10% and 20% of what they enter during the whole season. If these skiers are lost due to lack of snow, they will not be able to recover for the rest of the season.
