Panticosa is a small town in the region of Alto Gállego, in Huesca, famous for its Pyrenean landscapes and the Panticosa-Los Lagos ski resort. Soon it will be for something else: a huge mountain slide almost three kilometers long, half a hundred sleds and a deep unevenness of more than 700 meters that will be unique in Europe. With him the Government of Aragon aspires to dissecting tourism in the region now that the facilities dedicated to snow sports face an uncertain future.
For now, the technical tabogán file impresses.
A slide to dominate them all. If you like the slides go by reserving hole for Panticosa. The president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, yesterday put the first stone of which he aspires to become “the mountain slide with the greatest uneven in Europe.” At the moment we only have the photos of the presentation and some data of their technical file, but they serve to open appetite: the slide will measure almost three kilometers long and cover a slope of more than 700 meters. According to the Regional Executive, there is no other installation with a larger slope. At least in Europe.
Is there more data? Yeah. Diario del Alto Aragón He points out that the exact slope will be 707 my the slide will run along the hillside from the top of the telecabine to the lower one. The obstacles that are on the way will draw them with bridges and tunnels. The government has also specified that the sleds (with a capacity for an adult alone or with a child) will complete the almost three kilometers of travel in nine minutes. The maximum speed will be 40 km/h, a mark that will not be exceeded thanks to a brake system.
“It is not invasive”. In total, the slide will have fifty sleds that, according to executive calculations, will allow transporting about 1,100 people every day. “The system takes advantage of the energy of the telecabine during the climb, since it works with the same exploitation of the skiing track. Then, the descent is performed by gravity. By not requiring concrete foundation it is not invasive for the environment,” says News Ignacio Vicente, head of the project.
The installation includes a warehouse and shape it will cost 7.7 million euros. More than 90% (7.2 million) will leave the coffers of the Aragonese Executive and the rest of the Panticosa City Council. If the deadlines are fulfilled, the idea is to be operational at the end of 2026.
OBJECTIVE: Destationalize. With the new installation, Aragon has a clear objective: diversify the offer that visitors are in Panticosa and that the region is less dependent on snow -linked tourism. “It is an example of an economic engine and the de -stationalization of tourism,” Azcón said at the beginning of the works. “This slide can serve tourists for ten months a year and will be a central element in the de -stations of tourism that face ski stations.”
The initiative is in fact framed in the Pyrenees Plan, which as the Regional Executive recalls has among its objectives “to dissect” tourism in the four regions of the Aragonese Pyrenees. The 7.2 million dedicated to Panticosa Tobogán are added to the 12 that have already been invested in the Tena Valley in 2024 to install or replace 547 cannons for the production of snow in formigal-panticosa, “which meant an impulse in the ability to innivation in the stations of this area,” he claims the Azcón team.
New life for the valleys. In 2023, when presenting the master lines of the Pyrenees Plan in Panticosa, the Aragonese President explained that his goal is to “energize” the valleys of the northernmost region of the region, for which he already foresaw at that time an injection of more than 70 million. Among its initiatives, the Montanuy road and Panticosa slide were included, both projects designed among other things to enrich tourism in the area.
It is no accident. Over the last years, ski stations (in Spain and other countries) have been seen in difficulties due to snow shortage, which has condemned them to suffer “lightning seasons” or directly at the closure.
Images | Aragon Government (X)
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