Gourette

Gourette is a Winter sports resort of the the Pyrenees French are. It is located in the department of the Yrénées-Atlantiques.

It belongs to the commune of the Water-Good . On the road of the Collar of Aubisque, it offers one of the more skiables vast domains Pyrenean chain with 30 tracks balisées.
The field extends between: 1400 and: 2450 meters of altitude.

History

Landscape of the mines

In 1881, the municipal council of Water-Good, foreseeing a new source of revenue for the commune, authorizes the excavations on the site of Gourette. The exploitation of gold ore and siver-bearing discovered is entrusted to the Société of the Mines of Arre .

During the winter 1882-1883, 33 workmen winter with: 2100 m of altitude to dig the galleries. A Avalanche carries their hutments, making 17 dead including 13 Italians. The layer of Arre is abandoned 3 years later with the profit of the layer of the Lac of Anglas.

In 1890, a hundred minors works with the exploitation of the various layers. A railway was built to evacuate the ore and an elevated overhead railway descends it on 3 km to the circus from Gourette. Forty tons of ore are sorted and crushed each day on the site Gourette before being transferred to Laruns by tipcarts. From there the ore embarks in railroad for Bayonne, the England or the Spain. : 3720 tons of ore will be exported into 1888 which will remain the best year by far. The mines will remain exploited in an episodical way until in 1916.

Gourette and the ski

With the turning of the century: the time of the pioneers

This morning of November 1903, Henri Sallenave fixes at his feet the two long boards of ash to the bent ends which it received a few days before Manufacture of Saint-Etienne.

On the snow-covered plate of Gourette, only roofs of the huts of shepherds and workshops of the mine emergent of the snowy coat. For the first time in the Pyrenees, and after a test on the slopes of the plate of Bénou, it introduces a play which will upset the economy of the mountain: the ski .

The Thirties: birth of a station of mountain

With the coating of the road in 1930, electricity and the telephone start the development of the station. The first Paravalanche S are built, making safe the access and the first lines of regular Autocar S connect Gourette to Laruns, Pau and even Bordeaux.

The opening of the first country cottage-hotel of Gourette, with central heating, is an event. More need for the skiers to go down to sleep with Water-Good or Pau. It is quickly monopolized by customers of Bordeaux easy which will maintain the fame the station.

The Hotel of Aubisque, Edelweiss, the Country cottage of Amoulat settle with its continuation, monopolizing the best points of view.

The tourist development

The brutal importation, at the end of the Sixties, urban model of the Residence of Valentine made emerge in the middle of the natural circus a complex carpark/flagstone pedestrian/trade/residences which solidified the model of urbanization of the station. The undulating site on this occasion was levelled and the torrent of channeled Valentine.

The station, last since the Seventies of the first in the fifth place of the Pyrenean stations, suffers from the defects common to many tourist sites urbanized in the years 1970. Irregular investments combined with the absence of maintenance of the real inheritance emphasized the absence of architectural interest of the majority of the buildings and the poverty of insertion to the site.
The station also comprises a too strong proportion of studios badly equipped and badly isolated, unsuited to the new request.

The year 2000: new era

Conscious of its weaknesses, the station launched out in 2000 in an ambitious policy of reconquest:

Restoration and replacement of the ski lift , extension of the snow of culture with the creation of new tanks and the establishment of enneigeurs
Assistance with the restoration of housing stock
Improvement of the circulation and the Plane parking
of afforestation and restoration of the environment

For all accustomed station, the year 2001 is the symbol of the rebirth: the General advice of the Yrénées-Atlantiques invests several million euros in the modernization of the installations (disassembling of old increase, construction of news, reshaping of the tracks…). In short a complete face lift for better conditions of slips. In 2004, the station saw the building site of the most important summer of France with the removal of 100 pylons, the construction of 4 ski lifts as well as the complete reshaping of the bottom of the station. The station is however long in leaving the logic of a monoculture of the ski which ensured its development. One soft winter with a weak snowing up as in 2007 fact of crûment appearing crûment the absence of alternative, excursions or paths arranged which were not opened with the bulldozer.
The municipality still bets on an increase in the capacity of reception, with the recourse to the urbanization of last natural spaces of the site. This policy, which privileges the quantitative one with the detriment of the qualitative one however shows its limits in the majority of the stations of mountain.

The real estate project of Portillo, initiated by the promoter and former ski champion Philippe Barroso, is in counterpoint a full-scale test of the solutions with a future for the station.
This realization of 15 M€, whose assembly called upon Spanish investors, is targeted on a new type of customers. More roomy residences, associated services (swimming pool, spa, carpark, connection ADSL,…) answer at the request of purchasers of which already 30% do not practice any more the ski.
The realization of this complex of 61 residences also took the party to build on a site already built, partially in restoration and partially in new building. A happy initiative which avoids, in a very faded site already, extension of the built field and infrastructures associated.

The committed efforts by the commune start to bear their fruits but the station always suffers from a deficit of services (absence of cinema, of film hiring, of library, trade of proximity in connection with the frequentation)

Gourette and cycling

The station saw passing from many tests of cycling amateur or professional. In 1910, the 8th turn of France cyclist passes for the first time by the Col of Aubisque and Gourette, required passage in an exhausting stage of Luchon to Bayonne. On the mountain lanes of the time, only five runners have a shifting of speed, the others climb in gear ratio fixes… Only one runner will arrive at the top of the Col of Tourmalet without putting foot at terre.

The station is on the way of the 16th stage of the Tour de France 2007, a course of 218 kilometers connecting Orthez to Gourette - Collar of Aubisque.

See too

Collar of Aubisque
Peak of the South of Ose
Valley of Ose
Water-Good

External bonds

the official site of the station
the site Report of cycling

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