This report has to do with the French side. The main place to visit is Gavarnie, the site of one of the three "Cirques" in the area. 

In visiting a WHS I don't think I have experienced so many "twists" as I did with this Pyrenees WHS. 

When I was planning a trip to finish mainland France in winter 2019-2020 (just before the pandemic), I realized that it was better to visit all national / nature park-related WHS in France / Andorra in summer, not only because you can see more, but because public transportation is more frequent. So I postponed my visit to this Pyrenees WHS until some summer later.

Then, when I was planning such trip to visit this and other French / Andorra WHSs in summer 2022, I came across the following statement on the top page of the Gavarnie-Gedre Ski Resort: "In winter, near the Cirque de Gavarnie, discover a ski area ... in the heart of a UNESCO World Heritage Site!"

Gavarnie-Gadre Ski Resort

Pardon??? In the heart? You mean in the core zone? It can't be true! (I had in my mind the Bansko Ski Resort at the Pirin National Park WHS in Bulgaria where the ski area lies within the buffer zone surrounded the the core zone.) Upon my careful inspection of the WHS map, however, I concluded that at least one of the ski lift stations was within the core zone. I was fascinated by the idea of skiing in the core zone of a WHS. OK, I'll go! So I postponed my visit to this WHS once again until some winter later.

Such winter was this winter. I booked a non-cancellable open jaw trip, 2 weeks apart, to France to visit the Pyrenees WHS and several WHSs in Northern Spain. Then, as my trip approached in mid-December 2022, the Gavarnie Ski Resort announced that, due to little snow, the opening of the resort was postponed until further notice! It was too late for me to cancel this two week trip (as I aslo had 2 theater tickets on the first day in Toulouse and the last day in Paris), so I went ahead and ended up waiting for the ski resort to open in Toulouse and Lourdes and canceled the whole trip to northern Spain. (The lack of snow turned out to be a Europe-wide problem in winter 2022-23. But this ski resort eventually opened on 21/01/2023.)

Then came the biggest twist: 

While staying in Lourdes over Christmas, I started wondering why the Cirque de Gavarnie in photos looked so familiar to me and suddenly realized that it was actually the Lake Louise with the wall of cliffs in the background in the Canadian Rockies that looked so much like the Cirque de Gavarnie. The Lake Louise, especially when seen from the pistes of the Lake Louise Ski Resort, was unforgettably beautiful!

Wait a minute, I said. I have skied at a core zone of a WHS before! namely the Lake Louise Ski Resort at the Banff National Park within the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks WHS. Besides being a part of a WHS, Gavarnie-Gedra is just a minor ski resort. So I suddenly lost the whole reason to go skiing at the Gavarnie-Gedre! 

Well, I wasn't just going skiing there and tick this WHS. I was also planning to hike/snowshoe/Nordic ski to the Cirque de Gavarnie. So, from Lourdes I took a direct bus all the way to the village of Gavarnie one day and spent 6 hours in the area. 

My first stop was the tourist info office at Gavarnie.  The first thing I found out was that there was so little snow that there was no need for snowshoes or Nordic skis. They recommended hiking a loop that approached the Cirque. They also said that you could walk on the path along the stream toward the "Hôtel du Cirque et de la Cascade," but due to the possibility of avalanche not of snow but of rocks, they did not recommend the path.  

My second stop was Mairie / City Hall of Gavarnie that dabbles as the Office of the Pyrenees National Park, which has a little museum / exhibition space. Outside of it was a UNESCO plaque (lower left photo). 

My third stop was the église paroissiale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, which is one of the 78 components of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France WHS (lower right photo). 

The loop recommended by the tourist office starts right behind this church. Unlike the path along the stream that is designed also for cars, this loop is a hiking trail, but it was not very well marked, and when the loop crossed the path at the nearest point to the Cirque, I decided to forgo this loop and jump on the path. The truth was that I seemed to be the only one walking on the loop, and several dozen other tourists who didn't bother stopping at the tourist office were walking on this path despite the risk of falling rocks. 

I repeat: there was little snow in the Gavarnie area when I was there in late December. This meant that people were walking not only to the "Hôtel du Cirque et de la Cascade," but also all the way to the Cascada de Gavarnie (lower middle photo), the tallest waterfall in mainland France at 422 m, although only a little water was falling. This hike from the hotel to the waterfall took another hour or so, and right below the waterfall you need to climb up on the steep slope covered by the rocks that have fallen before. 

On the way back I just walked on the path along the stream straight back to the village of Gavarnie. This path generally offered better views of the Cirque (upper photo) than half the loop I walked on earlier.  

As far as the cultural part of this WHS goes, I was not able to see any signs of pastoral life even without snow. 

All in all, even though I did not accomplish my initial aim of skiing at this Pyrenees WHS, hiking all the way to the Cascada at the Cirque was more than what I expected. I wished I had not taken the hiking loop at all, as all the activities described above took up all 6 hours of my time at Gavarnie, and I did not even have time to have lunch that day. 

And who knows? There may be even more twists coming! If I discover that the Lake Louise Ski Resort is indeed excluded from the core zone of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks WHS, I would have to go back to Gavarnie for skiing!