Who can enjoy snow every day and how can they do it?

The Boí ValleyAlmost four hours by car from Barcelona and two more from the city of Lleida. The ski resort of Boí Taüll, in Alta Ribagorça, is always far from everywhere. Its promoters call it an overnight resort because few people dare to go for just one day. "Today I have a holiday and I decided to come for a few hours," says a resident of Barcelona, ​​a police officer by profession, who will spend more hours behind the wheel of the car than on skis. "But it's worth it, because on days like today there are no crowds on the slopes and we can ski better than ever," he says.

However, this type of skier is very rare in the ski resorts of Lleida on any given day in January, February and March, outside of the weekends and far from the Christmas and Easter holidays. Skiing activity at these times rarely reaches 50% of total occupancy. It's obvious. People have work responsibilities, but the resorts are determined to remain operational.

At nine in the morning, all the slopes at Boí Taüll are open. The snow is ready, the lifts and chairlifts are working and the offices are in full swing. The time before is always frenetic, with all the workers, whatever the day, finalising all the details to ensure the opening is efficient. "Every day we start at eight o'clock sharp, but if there is a forecast of bad weather we start even earlier," explain the station's maintenance workers.

On a weekday, including direct employees and external service companies (equipment rental, catering, instructors), the resort has a total of 200 professionals serving skiers. A figure that is not much higher at weekends (perhaps fifty more). It is surprising that a lower demand mobilizes so many personnel and remains profitable.

Snow in the classrooms

Who comes through the station gates during these lost days? The vast majority are children. More than a thousand every day. This is the average number of schoolchildren who, from Monday to Friday, pass through the slopes of this Pyrenean resort. The majority are from Valencia and Madrid, due to a historical dynamic in agreement with travel agencies, but there is also a good number of Catalan schools.

"We feel free here in the snow," says Julia, a 12-year-old from the Caparrella Institute in Lleida, who is spending a few days in Boí with her first-year ESO classmates. They call it White Week and, despite the feeling of freedom that the students express, they always ski with qualified instructors. "It's the first time I've skied and I'm sure I'll be back soon with my parents," says Èric, another student in the same class.

At INS Caparrella, they have had a tradition, for more than fifteen years, of organizing a trip to the snow for the youngest ESO students. Historically, a one-day trip was organized, but since the pandemic it was decided to extend their stay to three consecutive days taking into account the demand of families. "Our students come from different villages in the Segrià, many are children of farmers and ranchers, with few opportunities to go skiing often," argues Anna Planell, physical education teacher at the institute. In the curriculum of this subject there is a section dedicated to activities in nature and the center has decided to concentrate part of its programming on trips to the environment "so that they have experiential learning," says the teacher. Apart from skiing, young people also visit heritage elements, such as the Romanesque churches of the valley, and stay in a holiday camp in Erill la Vall. "Yesterday I ate three plates of macaroni for dinner," says one of the students at the center proudly amid laughter from her friends.

The Boí Taüll resort will end this season with an approximate volume of 14,000 schoolchildren, a figure considerably higher than last year (12,500). "We are lucky to have this public," admits the commercial manager, Andreu Velilla. Thanks to the schoolchildren, we can achieve an activity that exceeds 40% of what is registered on a weekend, a rate that can satisfy the promoters. "Taking into account that we also have to pay the salaries of the workers and keep the snow in good condition constantly, it is worth it to open the doors every day," concludes the marketing manager.

The reservations at schools, which are usually closed at the beginning of the school year, save a bad season. "Even if we have little snow, a dozen slopes that we open in good condition for schoolchildren is enough, because we are talking about a majority of beginner skiers," argues Velilla, recalling that the resort has a total of 43 alpine ski slopes.

In addition to the staff needed to have the snow, services and all the infrastructure ready, school skiing mobilises more than a hundred instructors in this resort, all hired by external schools. The ultimate goal is for the child to have a good time skiing. "We have to find mechanisms so that children feel comfortable and do not associate falls with something bad," says Manel Lapedra, an instructor at Boost, a school located in the Vall de Boí itself and which is particularly interested in ensuring that school attendance continues. Lapedra was born in Taüll and has grown up with skis on. "These mountains are my backyard," he jokes.

The Escola Vall de Boí is another of the historic ones in the area. Its director, Manel del Pozo, explains that all the staff must be clear about the public they are dealing with. "Not only the instructors, but also those who manage the lifts, the cafeteria and the information points must know how to understand this public, because if we treat them badly, we have already spilled it," he argues. "The children are now the mother of the eggs." Del Pozo recognises that children are a complex and difficult client. "If we want to be in the station, we must be prepared," he admits.

The commitment to school skiing is well studied in Boí Taüll. The first owners of the ski resort already started with this mentality at the end of the eighties. They believed in the school public in an unprecedented way and history has proven them right, because the rest of the Catalan resorts have also opened their doors in one way or another.

Boí Taüll was promoted with 100% private capital during the 1988-1989 season and finally launched in 1991. In 2004, the Nozar real estate group took over the majority of the shares and made significant investments, but the construction crisis of 2008. In 2014, the Generalitat assumed ownership of the facilities and, from 2019, also their management through the tourism division of Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat (FGC). The decision of the public administration was publicly justified by a territorial issue. "An abrupt closure of the station, without having configured an economic alternative to the region for the winter months, would have accelerated the destruction of jobs that the region has suffered since the beginning of the economic crisis and from which it has not yet recovered, which would mean the reappearance of dynamics of population loss," indicated the report9.

Family public days

Apart from school groups, the resort also attracts other minority profiles of clients who are particularly linked to the quieter days of the skiing calendar. These include retirees, teleworkers and, above all, families with children, those who "will not be in trouble if they miss a day of school," their parents think. This is the case of Alejandro Rey and Paula Pastor, who have come from Madrid with two children aged eight and six to spend a few days in the Vall de Boí. Every year they go skiing in the Pyrenees, usually in Andorra, but this time they have opted for the Lleida resort. "And we are very happy," they say.

The family clientele is particularly dominated by parents who have been skiing since they were young and who now also want to bring their children along. "Our little one is skiing, but we hope she will end up liking it," explains Gemma Vidal, a mother from the city of Lleida who watches her four-year-old daughter make a sour face next to the instructor. "We try to come three times during the winter," Vidal explains. "We always save our vacation days and we are coming here because we love it. Last year, without knowing it, we came during the Carnival and then it was not feasible, because with the children everything is more complicated, they are learning and need more space," adds Vidal, who assures that every summer she has hotel reservations and ski passes for the following winter.

Another business niche for many Pyrenean resorts, especially those in Andorra and Baqueira Beret, is the French public. The southern regions of France have the so-called winter holidays, which extend throughout the month of February, and which attract skiers and, obviously, entire families.

"There are also many retirees who opt for season passes. They no longer come specifically for one day, but you see them very often," adds Andreu Velilla.

"The months of January to March have historically been complicated, but things have improved recently," says Xavi Ubeira, the commercial director of Baqueira Beret, which is frequented by schoolchildren from Vall d'Aran, as well as fans of sports competitions, which are also held during this first quarter of the year to attract even more sporadic visitors.

Technology to overcome climate change

Everyone agrees: it is getting warmer in the Pyrenees. The snow level has been gradually rising over the years and it is difficult to find natural snow on the mountain slopes (the lowest level in Boí Taüll is at around 2,000 metres above sea level). Climate change is being tackled with technology. "The snow cannons are saving us," admits Andreu Velilla.

Boí Taüll is one of the resorts that enjoys, due to its geographical position, the best skiing conditions in all of Catalonia, but it is also feeling the pinch of rising temperatures and falling rainfall. The snow cannons (there are now 150, twice as many as forty years ago) are becoming more and more efficient and reuse the same water accumulated in the valley.

"The fear of climate change is always there, but it cannot condition us, whatever has to come will come," says Josep Maria Ramon, the head of maintenance at Boí Taüll and one of the area's long-standing workers. A son of the valley, he will soon be 64 years old and knows it inside and out. "Before, all the villages that were at an altitude of 1,500 metres were covered in snow and now they are not," he recalls, "the cannons are being a great help." Josep Maria Ramon has seen in his long career that tourism has saved the Pyrenees. "I am very happy with how it has evolved, it has taken a lot of life and the villages have changed positively," he says proudly.

"If we guarantee the product (snow), we will get all those people who are just looking for skiable kilometres," admits Xavier Perpinyà, technical director of FGC Turisme and former manager of the La Molina resort, and assures that it is not about spending more water or electricity, but about producing snow more quickly and efficiently. "Ski resorts are modern shepherds," says Perpiñán, who argues that businessmen are the first interested in preserving the natural environment. The optimisation of snow production has made it possible to give quality to the slopes, especially on weekdays, and even to lengthen the ski seasons. Experts remember that years ago it was almost unthinkable to ski before Christmas. "Now many people get angry when they cannot do it because of the Purísima long weekend," warn sources from the tourism sector.

Perpignan warns that people now demand quality. "We are no longer interested in growing, but in "We have to take care of everything well," he concludes. There is a lot of skiing in the Catalan Pyrenees, but the resorts have been aware for some time now that, in order to make their facilities profitable, they must expand their offer. Sleds, children's areas, zip lines, snowshoe excursions, the freeride (forapista), igloo workshops or snowmobile trips are some of the variables to increase the influx of tourists (and not just skiers).

In fact, experts say that the trend in the tourist market, which is marked by contact with natural spaces and the Catalan Pyrenees, with more pleasant temperatures than in other European mountain ranges, is being demanded more than ever. "As soon as you start offering new proposals, a dynamic is generated that increases demand," says Juli Alegre, head of promotion at Ara Lleida, the tourism board of the Provincial Council.