Arette-la-Pierre-St-Martin

Arette-la-Pierre-Saint-Martin is a high-altitude ski and mountain resort in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department of the French Basque Pyrenees, set in a spectacular landscape of high limestone karst plateaus and peaks near the Spanish border and the internationally famous Pierre Saint-Martin pothole — one of the deepest cave systems in the world, with a legendary history of early exploration by the French caver Marcel Loubens in the 1950s. The bicarbonate mineral springs of the La Pierre Saint-Martin plateau area draw on the exceptional hydrological richness of the Pyrenean karst, where water filters through vast underground networks of limestone caves before emerging as mineral springs. The winter ski area and summer hiking and caving activities make Arette-la-Pierre-Saint-Martin a year-round mountain destination of real adventure character, and the dramatic geological landscape of the high Basque Pyrenees — with its ancient cirques, limestone pavements, and underground river systems — is one of the most geologically extraordinary in the entire Pyrenean range. The mineral springs here offer a refreshing complement to outdoor Pyrenean adventure in one of the range's most geologically singular and scenically wild corners.