Portugal’s Snowiest Ever Ski Season?
Many people don’t realise that Portugal – a land most famous for its sunny weather and coastal villages – has a ski area vat its highest point at Serra da Estrela, nearly 2,000m up and east of capital Lisbon towards the Spanish border.
So it comes as a double surprise to discover not only that this ski centre exists, but also that it is currently enjoying what may be its snowiest ski season ever – meaning it is still open in late April when many of the wold’s biggest and highest ski areas have already ended their seasons.
The latest in a series of huge snowstorms to hit the slopes of Portugal this winter brought drifts of up to six metres as it raged on the latter days of last week. It took road and ski area crews two days to dig out access and lifts and the centre re-opened with amazing snow conditions on Monday 16th April.
Serra da Estrela is a modestly-sized ski resort with four ski lifts, one of them a chairlift, 130 metres (426 feet) of vertical and 9 slopes with a total length of 7.7 km (5 mi) plus a small terrain park.
(A submerged shed)
The resort’s managers hope that all the publicity generated by the snowfall will help in their campaign to look in to the possibilities of installing a gondola lift at the area to increase the ski area’s vertical and improve the wider tourism potential of the region.
So far there’s no news on an end date to the season.
