Is it hot? Go under a roof: SkiDubai!

read it in Italian

On May 1^st a fantastic winter season ended, a very generous one for Europe, with record-setting snow in many resorts.
But since the world is full of ‘snow maniacs’ (!) and not everyone can afford flying around the globe, a few years ago a smart group of entrepreneurs had the idea of the century: find a slope (or, better, create one), put a roof over it, place snowmakers along it, spend billions on electricity to drop the temperature below zero and there you are. No need for glaciers, or airplanes: perennial snow is just around the corner.
Would you consider it the craziest (and silliest ... let’s face it) idea of the century? Well, you’d better know that Skidomes have sprung up like mushrooms: born as bizarreness for the Land of the Rising Sun (as usual), even in a very serious country like Germany they have now become very serious fitness places (yes, just like a gym).

From my part, I definitely couldn’t miss this idyllic experience. So when I went to Dubai, I took the chance to ski at SkiDubai. Basically, the celebration of energy waste: 40 Celsius outside and -2 inside, a chairlift, a track with a couple of variations, a chalet on the slopes (believe it or not), a pitch for children, and a tube park.
The experience began with the equipment rental (included in the entry price). Skis: not bad. Boots: terribly deformed (ok, I know we are talking about renting but the boots I was given probably had been used by men with the fattiest ankles ever), to the point that I had to buckle them as tight as possible to make them even only seem snug enough for skiing!
Clothing: anorak and extra-thin trousers (hey, am I too fussy?... minus 2 is not that cold after all !?), with a single micro pocket.
Anyway, there I was, with very few other customers (me and two other Europeans, a few Russians, three Canadians, and a local boy who, on the way with the chairlift, told me with his disarming candour that the weekend before he had been to Italy to watch the match of Milan football team ... and he had travelled by Dad's plane).

Unexpectedly, I found a good snow-base (clearly ultra-transformed), without the slightest presence of ice or hard snow. So it's hard to admit it, but in the end it was fun. The almost total absence of people on the track allowed me to make any kind of trajectory (for the about twenty-second downhill!), take pictures and explore this arctic microcosm in the middle of the desert.

After about an hour at that temperature, the chalet suddenly became very attractive (well, I had thought the light clothes were a sign of careless organization, but I was wrong ...). After a hot chocolate and twenty more minutes skiing, my SkiDubai experience ended.

Am I glad to have given it a try? Yes . Would I do this again? I don’t think so ...

However, if you do not want to miss out the opportunity of indoor skiing, you should know that:
- the Alpin Center in Bottrop (Germany) has the longest ski track (640 meters) http://www.alpincenter.com/bottrop/startseite/

- again in Germany, in Oberhof, you can do cross-country skiing on a circuit of nearly 2 km;
- about 17 countries are home to similar amenities, and at least 7 more (including Italy, the USA and Sweden) are ready to take this great (?) step.

PS: bring your thermal underwear ...