HOW THEY SKI IN SPAIN
FOR AN HOUR OR MORE, we had been descending through a forest of black pine and fir, following a stream we could hear but not see. The snow lay deep, smothering the creek and turning tree stumps into giant white mushrooms. There were bears in these woods, said my guide, a young Spaniard named Peru Ortiz de Zarate, and bearded vultures that crunch on the bones of dead mountain goats. But we were making far too much noise to risk meeting these animals, laughing as we pushed past the trees that grabbed at our rucksacks and ski poles.
Finally, as if pulling back a theatre curtain, Ortiz de Zarate parted two branches to reveal our destination. Ahead was a clearing in the forest, where a wooden bridge straddled a burbling stream swelled by melting snow. Beyond it, looking like something from a fairy tale, lay a deserted hamlet named Montgarri—a place of pilgrimage since the 12th century and once a key staging post for travellers crossing the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Today just two buildings remain, cocooned in silence and slow time: a 16th -century church with rough stone walls and a dilapidated spire, and the former rectory alongside it.
Our heavy-booted footsteps rang out as we crossed the cobblestoned courtyard, swept clear of snow. Inside the rectory—now converted into a refuge for climbers and skiers—a Spanish pointer dozed beside the glowing logs of an open fire. A waiter brought us olives and glasses of cold beer, then raked the embers and fixed a grill above them, throwing on some vast beef ribs, a rose-colored liqueur made with sloes and flavored with cinnamon. We walked over to the empty church so I could light a candle, then hurried out to catch the last ride back to the ski resort—a snowmobile that pulled us along on our skis. Hanging tipsily from the rope as we climbed a track through the darkening forest, I smiled into my scarf, happily exhausted by the most memorable day’s skiing I’d had in years.
