The Ampriu is known as 'Chairlift of Love' for its pink posts, and because a few years ago there was a day of 'dating' on that ski lift. Each participant was given a lollipop, and as a couple they climbed to get to know each other calmly taking advantage of the slowness of the ski lift. An apparatus that has much more history behind, since it was the one that was going to be placed in Benasque to take skiers to Cerler back in the 1970s, when the resort was founded.
Therefore the project of union of Benasque with the ski slopes is something that has been going on for many years, but it has never been possible to carry out. Yes, a road was built to the town of Cerler , which before opening the resort, barely had an unpaved road. Today it looks proudly at its entrance, which is the highest town in the Pyrenees of Huesca .
First it was a chairlift , which finally could not be mounted and ended up walking suitors in Ampriu , but a few years later it was concluded that what had to go there was a cable car . There have been many and varied projects that have been put on the table, and there have been few who were so vehemently assured, that many of us came to believe that this ski lift really was already placed, like the one announced in 2007.
The reality is that we are in 2020 and Benasque is still connected to Cerler only by road , but as is traditional, the project comes out again. On this occasion, the mayor of Benasque , José Ignacio Abadías, has just said that in a couple of months the cable car goes out to tender and that in December we will already be mounted directly to the Mill .
He announced this last Thursday during the recording of the program Being Adventurers that took place in the Palace of the Counts of Ribagorza . The mayor recalled that in 2007, this project already had the approval of the Department of Environment of the Government of Aragon and that it was even published in the BOA. Radio Huesca recalls in its digital edition, that this project consisted of a cable car with a start at the Benasque sports facilities and an end in the El Molino area, with a distance of 2 km and saving a height difference of 370 meters. Then it was planned as a tricable ski lift capable of withstanding winds of up to 100 km per hour and with a transport capacity of 3,600 people per hour. The cost was estimated at around 13-14 million euros.
A pastón clearly, that the mayor has assured that it can be lowered by touching up some parts of the project. 2007 were years of 'wine and glory', when Aramón planned pharaonic extensions with the international architect Norman Foster and in which Benaque climbed into the car with a cable car at the technological height of the best ski resorts in the Alps.
Today the situation is seen with other eyes. It is possible that a 3S cable car is not necessary, but a simpler one as all the resorts of the French Pyrenees with connection lift from the village to the slopes .
To the traditional arguments of the reduction of traffic and the convenience of being able to avoid traffic jams in bad weather, now Abadias has added something that is more in vogue these recent years: environmental respect . And he does not lack reason. Of course there are thousands of cars that go up, not only to the highest town in the Aragonese Pyrenees , but even higher up, to the Ampriu car park . In fact, in this last issue, the Mayor added that next to the construction of the cable car, a vehicle car park area would be created.
