Valdezcaray webcams

What you can see on the Valdezcaray webcams

Between them the cameras show the whole resort. From the main building, one looks up the upper bowl, past the curved roof of a chairlift station and along the pistes and fences to the summit ridge of San Lorenzo. Another watches the Llano Rehoyo area, where a lift station and the beginners' slopes sit on a broad shelf above the woods. A third looks over the Colocobia lift and its buildings, and on clear mornings across a sea of cloud filling the valleys below. The last shows the hairpin bends of the access road and the car park. They are still photographs, not video, each stamped with the date and time; the refresh button brings the latest.

The access road and car park at Valdezcaray

Mounted on the roof of a building at the bottom of the resort, this camera looks down on the last hairpin bends of the road up from Ezcaray, with its crash barriers, a pedestrian crossing and the car park beside it. Pines and scrub cover the slopes around, and the ridge of the mountain closes the view.

It is the camera to check before setting off in winter: you can see at once whether the road is clear, wet or white, whether the snowploughs have been through and how full the car park is. Each photo is stamped with its date and time.

Valdezcaray webcam up the bowl to San Lorenzo

The resort's main camera looks from the top of the base building up the heart of Valdezcaray, towards the Salegares and Tubos runs. In the middle of the picture is the top station of a chairlift with its white curved roof; beyond it the pistes climb the bowl between snow fences and lift pylons to the long, bare ridge of San Lorenzo, the highest mountain in La Rioja.

It is the camera that shows how much of the mountain is covered: in a good winter the whole bowl is white to the summit, while thin snow shows first as dark patches on the ridge. Each photo is stamped with its date and time.

Llano Rehoyo, the beginners' area

Looking down from a lift building, this camera covers Llano Rehoyo, a broad shelf on the mountainside where the gentle slopes for beginners sit. In the frame are a chairlift station with the resort's name on its side, the cable and chairs passing overhead, wooden fences and the service track that curves around the area, with wooded slopes falling away to the valley.

For families it is the useful one: it shows whether the nursery area has snow and how many people are on it. On a clear morning the sun catches the ridge first and reaches the shelf a little later. Each photo is stamped with its date and time.

Colocobia lift and the sea of cloud

The Colocobia camera looks over one of the lower lift bases: a large shed, the station of a chairlift, blue containers and a wooden mountain hut, with the lift and a track climbing the ridge behind to a small building on the skyline. To the right the view opens out over the Sierra de la Demanda and, on many mornings, over a sea of cloud filling the valleys towards the Ebro.

That view out is its strength: it shows whether the resort is above the fog when Ezcaray and the plains are grey, which often makes the drive up worthwhile. Each photo is stamped with its date and time.