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Resorts & Ski Areas:

For such a tiny country, Andorra punches way above its weight when it comes to snowsports. Ever since the first ski lifts were installed in 1957, the country's ski stations have continuously ploughed investment into extending their boundaries and upgrading their facilities, services, lifts and pistes. This consistent drive for improvement resulted in two of the most important tourism initiatives in Europe in the winter of 2004/05 and boosted Andorra into the world snowsports super-league.

The already lift-linked stations of Pal-Arinsal agreed a joint marketing and commercial strategy with the little-known but exciting station of Ordino-Arcalís in the neighbouring parish. Although not linked by lifts/pistes, all these stations now share a combined lift pass, increasing the value and choice for holiday-makers to this region of Andorra, now collectively marketed as the Vallnord ski domain.

The biggest news of that season though was the long-awaited full commercial linking of Andorra's biggest and most internationally renown ski areas: Pas de la Casa-Grau Roig and Soldeu-El Tarter. These two ski areas had already expanded to the point where they shared a couple of pistes on historically disputed meadows along the border between the two different parishes to which the stations belong. The resulting super-domain, named Grandvalira, is now one of the planet's top ten ski areas as measured by uplift capacity, modernity of ski lifts and extent of pistes.

Vallnord and Grandvalira may be relatively new names in snowsports travel, but these impressive developments are now the biggest and most progressive ski stations in the Pyrenees. On-going investment is also ensuring that this tiny vibrant patch of a country, on the otherwise now less colourful tapestry of the European map, continues to be a major player in the world's snowsports market.

For current news and events, live weather reports, resort webcams, ski area data, lift passes and related services prices, please click on either of the first two links below to go directly to the respective official Andorran ski-domains' websites: