Too Low: Mallorca's mountains

At the risk of offending some people, it should be admitted that God made one or two cock-ups when it came to divvying up geographical attributes. Who exactly was the engineer at God Inc. who managed to make Mallorca's mountains only as high as they are? I think that shareholders should be told, as they have been denied their dividends because of the lack of height for far too long. God should really be placed in front of a parliamentary enquiry and be grilled as to what on earth the thinking was behind mountain peaks which, at their highest, are at minimum 500 metres or, more like it, 1000 metres too low. Someone, God presumably, miscalculated. Had he not, a Mallorcan winter cup might otherwise be overflowing.

A further reason for giving God a hard time at a meeting of the committee for mountains in Mallorca is that had he had the foresight to make the mountains that much higher, we wouldn't be subject, every year, to idiots declaring incredulously: "Oh my God. It snows!? In Mallorca!?"

Yes, it does bloody well snow. A simple glance at Mallorca's latitude and the height of its admittedly not too high peaks would, for anyone with any sense or knowledge,  tell those of an incredulous bent that, well, it isn't that surprising that it snows. Not that it snows that much. Usually. But it does snow. Quite frequently and quite frequently to a depth more than the equivalent to that of the height of a chick pea: in the mountains, such as they are. Had the mountains been higher, however, the incredulous idiots would not exist. They would look at some bloody great mountains and see some snow on top of them even in summer. Like in Corsica, for example.

Had God not cocked up, we would now, thanks to the first cold snap of the Mallorcan winter, be welcoming aircraft, tour operators, skiers with skis, ski-instructors, waiters, hotel workers, delivery drivers and all manner of other ancillary snow-tourism personnel. I say that we would be welcoming them, but Mallorca would, regardless of any natural intervention by God, have decided that it didn't want any of the foregoing. Such is the lack of foresight of Mallorcan winter tourism planning. But the winter tourism planners can breathe a sigh of relief that they don't actually have to bother, because God got it wrong - by at least 500 metres.

The Association for Ski and Mountain Tourism Resorts (ATUDEM) has signed an agreement with the Spanish tourism promotion agency Turespaña to develop the marketing of ski tourism this winter. This is of course ski tourism on the mainland. There isn't any ski tourism on Mallorca because the mountains aren't high enough; this was God's big mistake.

At similar latitudes on the mainland - it isn't totally necessary to go north to the Pyrenees or south to the Sierra Nevada - there are mountains that are higher than Mallorca's and which get more snow. These areas, for example not far from Valencia, can boast cosy log cabins and wintery scenes. Mallorca, on the other hand, can't. Its wintery scenes just look crap. Not enough snow, generally speaking, no skiing, no cosy log cabins and so therefore no tourism.

I blame God almost entirely. There he was, going around claiming that he had made some paradise island, but he was far too strict on mountain building regulations. "We can't make them too high," he presumably said. So, the mountains that there are, are only pretend mountains. Some would say they are no more than hills. And no one goes hill skiing. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.