The Aragonese Pyrenees are the part of Spanish skiing that foreign visitors tend to miss. The Sierra Nevada gets the sunshine headlines and Baqueira gets the royal family, but the valleys north of Huesca have four proper resorts, reliable snow at altitude, and towns that still feel like mountain towns rather than resorts built for lift passes. The gateway is Jaca, and the airport is Zaragoza.
The resorts
Two valleys, four ski areas, all within an hour of Jaca:
- Candanchú — the oldest ski resort in Spain, right on the French border above the Somport pass. Steep in places, with a long, serious off-piste tradition.
- Astún — Candanchú’s neighbour, five minutes down the road: newer, more compact, better for intermediates and easier to get around with children.
- Formigal — the biggest of them, in the Tena valley, with terrain spread across four sectors and the liveliest après-ski in Aragón.
- Panticosa — small, pretty and family-friendly, with a spa at the bottom of the valley in Balneario de Panticosa that is the best possible end to a ski day.
Candanchú and Astún sit at about 30 km from Jaca; Formigal and Panticosa are roughly an hour by road through Sabiñánigo. Most people staying in Jaca ski two or three of them in a week.
The season
The Pyrenean season usually runs from early December to late March or mid-April, with the best conditions in February. These mountains are lower than the Alps, so snow at the bottom varies; the upper sectors at Formigal and the bowls at Candanchú hold it longest. Check the resort reports the day before rather than the week before.
Jaca as a base
Jaca is a town of 13,000 people with a Romanesque cathedral, a star-shaped sixteenth-century citadel that still has deer living in its moat, and an ice rink that has hosted international competitions. It is cheaper than staying at the resorts, it has restaurants that stay open in low season, and it puts all four ski areas within reach.
One detour is worth making even if you do not ski. Canfranc station, 25 km north, is a vast art deco railway palace built in 1928 in the middle of nowhere, abandoned for decades and now restored as a hotel. It looks like a film set because it has been one.
What to eat
Book your transfer
Aragonese mountain food is built for cold: migas with grapes, ternasco — milk-fed lamb, the regional speciality — borraja, and cheeses from the valleys. Wash it down with Somontano wine from the foothills rather than the Rioja you would get further west.
Beyond the pistes
The Aragonese valleys have a second season that has nothing to do with lifts. Snowshoe routes run from Candanchú and from the Ordesa valley further west; the Astún nordic circuits are quiet on weekdays; and Ordesa y Monte Perdido national park, an hour and a half from Jaca, is spectacular under snow and almost empty between December and March.
The San Juan de la Peña monastery, built into the overhang of a cliff face south of Jaca, is the other thing worth the detour: a Romanesque cloister under a rock roof, with a view over the Pyrenees that explains why the kings of Aragón chose it.
Zaragoza, if you have a night there
Most people pass straight through, but the city is worth an evening. The Basílica del Pilar dominates the riverfront, the Aljafería palace is the finest piece of Islamic architecture in northern Spain, and El Tubo — a knot of narrow streets in the old town — is one of the best tapas districts in the country, with none of the queues of San Sebastián. If your flight lands late, a night in Zaragoza and a morning drive up the valley is often better than arriving in Jaca at midnight.
Getting there
Zaragoza airport (ZAZ) is the closest to these valleys. Our transfer from Zaragoza airport to Jaca covers 155 km in about an hour and fifty-five minutes, with a driver who meets you at arrivals and space for ski bags. The road is good — motorway most of the way, then the N-330 up the valley — but it is a mountain road at the end, in winter, often in the dark.
If you are breaking the journey, Huesca is 82 km from the airport and has the best restaurants between the two.
And if your plans point further west, to the Val d’Aran, the transfer from Zaragoza to Baqueira-Beret is also available: 320 km and about four hours, which is a long drive but a fixed price per vehicle, and cheaper than four separate train-and-bus tickets with skis.
The short version
- Four resorts: Candanchú, Astún, Formigal, Panticosa. Season roughly December to March.
- Base yourself in Jaca: cheaper, livelier and central to all four.
- See Canfranc station even if you do not ski.
- Zaragoza airport to Jaca: 155 km, about two hours.
