Sierra Nevada Skiing

For many of us that are lucky enough to live on the Costa del Sol, skiing in the Sierra Nevada has to be our main distraction during the winter months!

It's an easy drive away from most areas on the Coast taking only two and half hours from Marbella. It's very easy to find - stay on the N340 through Malaga (don’t turn off for the airport) and follow the signs to Granada where you will pick up brown road signs for the Sierra Nevada. This road just plonks you in the middle of the village! What could be easier! If you're starting your holiday in the Sierra Nevada and then driving down to the Coast, why not try and book a flight to Granada airport instead?

There is a great website providing general information on the resort at www.sierranevadaski.com. It features some amazing photographs of skiing and snowboarding action, weather reports, piste conditions and lift passes and, if you click on En Pista on the menu bar to the left, a menu will drop down and one of the options is a web cam which shows current state of some main parts of the resort.

The resort usually opens around 1^st December depending on snow conditions and the season can carry on straight through until Easter.

Perhaps it’s not somewhere that you’d go for your main week long skiing holiday unless you’re a beginner. It’s fantastic for beginners with lots of wide motorway runs and a ski school there which ranks among the best in Europe. Also, the resort is small enough for one of you to pootle around on your skis while your friends are in ski school and then easily meet up in the central area for refreshment.

The resort village is not that big but there is a selection of restaurants and bars. Everyone tends to eat early and then hang round the hotel lounges and there's not so much après ski as in other European resorts.

Also Granada is worth a visit while you’re there – fantastic restaurants and tapas bars in the old town. Some people prefer to stay in Granada for the wider range of hotels and night life. The trip up the mountain then takes you around twenty minutes to half an hour each morning and evening.

You can hire everything in the resort, including clothes if you’re not too worried about style!

The Melia chain of hotels www.solmelia.com has two great hotels up in the village. If you visit their website, select Espana in the box for Pais and Sierra Nevada where it says Ciudad / Zona on the menu bar to the left of the screen. There’s not much to choose between the two hotels there; both are right in the centre of the village, close to the hire shops and lifts and have their own swimming pools and some spa facilities. They take your car away and park it for you – you pay for the privilege but there’s not much street parking so it's worth paying the 18 euros a day for parking so not to have to worry about your car while you're enjoying the skiing.

There is also the Hotel Ziryab which is very nice and central and right on top of the main carpark with it’s own reserved area.

If we are going for the day we usually aim to get there for about 9.30 – hire shops open at 10 and there’s sometime a longish queue for the two cable car lifts that take you up to the slopes. Worth the wait though. Avoid the main Spanish holidays if you can.

The website for the resort includes pricing for lift passes. It’s around 30 euros a day and gets cheaper the more consecutive days you buy for. Ski and boot hire is about the same. The resort is very high (3000m) so is a little susceptible to bad weather in which case it closes. High wind is often the problem. However this is the only resort we know that refunds your lift pass if they have to close or the weather is only suitable for hard cases. They charge you an extra 6 euros for your lift pass when you first visit. This is a deposit for the card. At the end of your trip you can either put the card back in a machine (dotted around the lift pass kiosks) and get a refund of your 6 euros, or hold on to the card and next time you go you can charge up your lift pass online before you drive up so that you don’t have to queue.

Weather wise it’s normally glorious – light ski jackets are best with a tee shirt underneath. If it’s clear and you can cope with a moguly red run there is a great view of the sea from the top.

It's a great experience whether you are a beginner or a bit more accomplished. Black runs are in short supply so if you're looking for more of a challenge, check out some of the resorts in the North of Spain.