Pic du Midi

For my annual ski trip for the winter 2022-23 season, because my original ski resort destination in the Pyrenees, Gavarnie-Gedre ski resort, had not opened as scheduled due to little snow, and eventually I decided that I didn't have to go to this particular ski resort, I was wondering what to do, while stuck in Toulouse and Lourdes. 

When I originally planned this trip, even though I was aware of L’observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre (2,877 m), it had not been nominated for a WHS, and it was for me just another tourist attraction / observation deck in the vein of Aiguille du Midi (3,778 m) in French Alps. But while in Lourdes, I suddenly discovered that Pic du Midi had been nominated for a WHS only a few months before. Pic du Midi lies within the Grand Tourmalet, the largest ski resort in the French Pyrenees, which was partially open. In order to go to Pic du Midi from Lourdes and come back within a day, however, the only way was to ski from the Barèges lift station to La Mongie lift station within the Grand Tourmalet and take 2 successive rope ways from La Mongie to Pic du Midi. (Col du Tourmalet, the road between Barèges and La Mongie famed for Tour de France, was closed due to snow.)

But then I was surprised that the two rope ways cost whopping 47 Euros. Upon finding out, however, that the lift ticket for the Grand …