The Grand Tourmalet area has invested 12 million euros to modernise two important sectors of the resort – Les Sapins in La Mongie and La Piquette in Bareges.
The biggest part of this spend has gone on two new high-speed-quad chairlifts, ready to go in to action this winter. The objective is to increase skier flow around this large area and take out peak time bottle necks.
The first quad, Sapins, replaces the old “Pain de sucre” drag lift. The new lift has ‘anti-fall’ safety features. There are also new beginner areas and a new sledging runs down to La Mongie.
The second new high speed quad, La Piquette, on the Barèges side runs from the Lienz area. It has a loading carpet to increase uplift speed and replaces the old “Vintage” double chairlift. The chair’s arrival area has also been re-designed to be much easier and more comfortable for off-loading.
The La Piquette blue run, a 2.5km blue run the lift serves, has been completely remodelled with 21 snow cannon added.
In total five pistes in the sector have been improved and the blue “Panoramic” run has been widened over its entire length. It follows the ridge of the famous Col Tourmalet and providing a 360° view.
In further improvements the areas two existing 6 seat chairlift Tourmalet and Espade have had their engines upgraded to more powerful models enabling extra chairs to be carried and thus allowing them to increase their carrying capacity from 2400 to 3000 skiers per hour.
