World Indoor Snow News

The Snow Dome Bispingen in Germany may re-open later this year according to local media reports.

The complex, which was part funded and sponsored by Austria’s Otztal region, closed suddenly on 31st March, but recent reports suggest that behind-the-scenes efforts to re-open it are underway.

One report suggests that a 1.5 million Euro investment in upgrading the facility is required along with a restructuring of the business with fewer staff employees in order for it to be sustainable in the future.

The hope of a lifeline is based mainly on an interview with regional leader Olaf Lies and Jakob Falkner who run’s Solden’s lift company in Austria, which is responsible for the centre. Both said they remain committed to it with Mr Lies saying, the community wanted to support the Snow dome moving forward, adding, "We want vibrant and sustainable tourism here and the Snow Dome is an important beacon, which we would like to maintain so we are delighted that Mr. Falkner remains committed to the Snow Dome at Bispingen."

Some reports said renovation work was already underway at the facility but a message on the centre’s website indicates that the centre is permanently closed.

The first ever indoor snow park in Qatar will be among the major attractions at the QR6bn Doha Festival City which will be completed in the first quarter of 2016.

“We did an extensive market research which revealed snow entertainment is something that people here want to experience. The next generation snow park will be something unique and cutting edge,” said Kareem M Shamma, Chief Executive Officer, Bawabat Al Shamal Real Estate Co (BASREC), the joint venture representing the development’s Qatari and Emirati shareholders.

The indoor snow park would be complemented by an outdoor entertainment park which will comprise a rapid river, splash fountains and a host of extreme games, added Shamma.

Full story at ThePeninsularQatar.com

A report by long time local commentator John Brennan in New Jersey on the decade plus old Meadowlands project in the state, incorporating the first indoor snow centre to be built, but not open, in North America , suggests that after four years in hibernation work on the site may be about to recommence.

Brennan notes that the indoor snow centre, which was completed four years ago and was famously structurally damaged by weight of natural snowfall on its roof during a major storm, remains part off the revised project, currently slated to open in autumn next year, but that it has been renamed The Snow Park.

The overall mall project which has already seen an estimated 3 billion spent on it by three different owners over the past 12 years requires another 2 billion dollars spent on it, including an additional indoor water park and Dreamworks-backed theme park, before opening according to new owners the mall developers Triple Creek.

Here's a video posted back in 2009, showing the completed slope just sitting there, quad chair lift at the ready.

Germany’s Snowdome Bispingen has unexpectedly announced it will close in a month’s time on Easter Sunday (31st March) with the loss of 137 jobs.

The centre opened in 2007 and is located 50km south of Hamburg in Germany. It was built with the support of leading Austrian resort Sölden and the local Lower Saxony government, who have asked the centre’s management to discuss the situation.



The building housing the snowdome facility is easily visible from several miles away and blends in perfectly with the surrounding landscape, drawing guests from near and far. The centre’s 100m wide slope is believed to be the widest indoor run in the world and with a length of 300m it is one of the six longest. Slope gradients range between 9 and 20 degrees and are served by a Doppelmayr six-seat chairlift with a capacity of 3000 skiers per hour.

According to German media reports the centre’s closure came as a surprise even to the Snow Dome’s CEO José Fernandes, with the closure decision the result of a meeting of the operators and a group of investors around the Ötztal mountain railways.

"We already had the press releases ready for the summer events," said his spokeswoman Leonie Pride who said the number of visitors you had actually been happy - 500,000 people had come in the past year to Snowdome, although more than half of these were reported to be visiting to use a permanent surfing wave which was added three years ago, and dine in restaurants, with the target of 1000 people on the slopes each day not being met.



Reasons for the closure initially appear to be high energy costs outstripping income and required investment in lifts and snowmaking making the facility even less financially viable. Federal and state governments had contributed 3.4 million Euros to the complex.

The recommencement of construction at the site of North America’s first indoor snow centre looks set to be delayed by complex financial and legal debate between the various stake holders.

The project, in New Jersey, USA, which began more than a decade ago, was once called Xanadu and is on to its third owner, Triple Creek, operator of many of the continent’s largest malls including the Mall of America in Minnesota.

The company wants to spend around $2 billion more dollars on the project which has already seen a similar amount spent, adding an indoor amusement and water park. The indoor snow centre part of the development was completed around four years ago but, like the rest of the complex, has never opened.
It had been hoped the facility would open in February 2014 but with a probable two year construction period it now looks unlikely the facility will open before 2016 – some 15 years since originally mooted.

Yawn!

The New Jersey Star Ledger in New Jersey, USA has listed the $3.8 billion ‘American Dream | Meadowlands™’ at lucky number 13 in its list of 13 things for New Jersey residents to look forward to in 2013.

The complex, once known as Xanadu and ‘under construction,’ on and off, since 2004 and now on to its third owners, has been 80% complete for nearly five years and includes the North American continent’s first indoor snow centre.

This was built in 2008 and has seen snow made within it, and has subsequently been damaged by natural snowfall, but has never opened to the skiing and snowboarding public.

“(Will it...) finally be completed this year? The head of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says he’s optimistic the building the governor once described as the ugliest in America will open by the end of the year, just in time for Super Bowl week in February of 2014. But first it has to shed a nuisance suit by the Giants and Jets, who want the sprawling mall shuttered on game days,” says the New Jersey Star Ledger’s piece.

When complete, the mall will be one of the largest and most unique shopping, entertainment and tourism centers in the world, creating an experience rivalled only by West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Canada and Mall of America® in Bloomington, Minnesota – which both share the same owners as the American Dream’s, Triple Five Worldwide.

“American Dream is intended not only to draw local residents and New York City area tourists for a day of shopping and entertainment, but also to attract visitors from around the world,” say Triple Five Worldwide on the centre’s website www.americandream.com

Besides The American Dream complex, more than 20, possibly as many as 100 indoor ski complexes have been proposed in Canada and the USA over the past 25 years, none of which has made it to the constriction phase.

“Although the project is 80 percent complete, Triple Five and its team of experts, architects and designers are making changes to the exterior to improve aesthetics and to the interior to improve retail attraction and retention.”

2013 marks 25 years since the first of the current ‘modern’ indoor snow centres were created.

Three indoor snow centres opened around 1988 in Australia (Mount TheBarton), Japan (Ski In Tsudanuma and in Belgium (Skibaan Casablanca). Sadly all three centres have subsequently closed.


Mount Thebarton

Earlier versions off indoor snow centres date back to the 1920s in Berlin and Vienna and in the early 1950s a complex using crushed ice as a snow surface for part of the year opened at Seibu in Japan. Now with an artificial slope surface under the snow this complex celebrated 60 years of operations in 2012.

The longest established and still operational ‘real snow’ indoor snow centre is generally agreed to be Tamworth Snowdome in the UK which opened in 1994, so 20 years old next year. A small earlier "test facility" at nearby Telford opened in 1989 by operators Acer Snowmec, who have gone on to make snow for many of the world’s leading indoor snow facilities, opened to the public in 1993 but has since closed.

One of the world’s largest ever indoor snow centres, the SSAWS indoor snow centre in Tokyo Harbour also opened in 1993 just after the Japanese bubble economy burst and never recouped its $300m (US) construction cost before closing in 2002.


SSAWS (Summer Spring Autumn Winter Snow)

Around 80 indoor snow centres have been built in approximately 30 countries over the past 25 years and around 50 are still operational, with the most (6+) in Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the UK. The largest by slope area in Snowworld Landgraaf in the Netherlands and by slope length the Amneville Snow Hall in France.

Land Securities yesterday revealed it is to buy a controlling stake in X-Leisure, the owner of venues including the Xscape indoor ski slopes and Brighton Marina, for £110.6m.

The property giant has agreed a deal with Capital and Regional and Area Property Partners to buy a further 42 per cent stake in X-Leisure Unit Trust and also buy outright the company that manages the £580m fund.

Land Securities has been on a buying spree this year to increase its exposure to the leisure and eating-out sector, which it views as being under less threat from the internet.

It acquired its initial 12 per cent stake in X-Leisure last year and in May the developer snapped up Manchester’s leisure complex the Printworks for £95m as well the Cornerhouse in Nottingham £50m.

X-Leisure owns 16 schemes across the UK totalling 3.1m square feet an include everything from ski slopes to rock climbing centres, sportswear shops and restaurants.

The deal, which needs to be approved by other investors in the fund, would give Land Securities day-to-day control of the assets.

[From Cityam.com]

The world’s oldest surviving indoor snow centre, Japan’s Sayama which was first established in 1958, and currently which makes snow indoors in a non-refrigerated building with an ‘all-weather’ snowmaking machine on top of an artificial-surface dry slope, had to limit opening as unseasonably warm weather caused the snow to melt too quickly.



Apologising to its customers, Sayama’s management first announced it was ending evening operations and then closed completely from November 1st -3rd to allow for snow over to be rebuilt.

For the first half of November the centre then limited opening to 10am – 6pm daily.


http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~tt-out/Sayamaski.html

A new indoor ski area has been proposed for the city of Randers in Denmark which would be the world's biggest yet and boast a futuristic design.

The structure would be made up of three overlapping arcs containing the slopes. From above they resemble the six lines of a typeface snowflake.



Ski Dome Denmark (skidomedenmark.dk) would be 110m high and 700m in diameter with an indoor ski area of 64,000 square metres – nearly double the total of the current world's largest indoor snow area at SnowWorld Landgraaf in the Netherlands. It would be able to accommodate up to 3000 skiers and boarders at any one time and has already its own piste map. Indoor temperatures would be maintained at -1C

There will be six indoor runs, two easy blues, two steeper reds and two blacks – totalling just over 3km of runs. All indoor runs will be 740m long and 32m wide, the easy runs covering 42m of vertical, the moderate runs 67m of vertical and the steepest runs 92m of vertical. There'll be six indoor and two outdoor lifts and a travelator. The longest indoor run at present, around 600m in length, is the Amneville Ski Hall in France.

In a similar move to the recently opened indoor/outdoor ski slope in Lithuania, there would also be two outdoor black runs, 48m long and 800m long.

Other facilities will include a terrain park with quarter pipe, rails and kickers and off slope there would be shops, changing and bathing facilities, a hotel and restaurants including one offering spectacular views from the top of the structure.



The company behind Ski Dome Denmark, DanSki (www.danski.dk) and a Danish ski travel agency are working in partnership with skiwear brand SOS and the French ski resort Alpe d'Huez. The trail names have Alpe d'Huez associations like 'Mini Sarenne'.

Other planned slopes longer and larger than the current existing biggest buildings include proposed 1km long slopes in China from the company that runs the Beijing indoor ski slope, a proposed 2km long slope in the United Arab Emirates and a 700m long slope proposed for Moscow. None of those were built.

Source: www.j2ski.com/ski-chat-forum/posts/list/0/13207.page

A Florida group is planning to build a giant winter-themed entertainment centre in the state. Solar Mountain will have indoor ski slopes up to 2700 feet (about 850m) long – more than 200m longer than the world’s current longest slopes at Amneville in France.

The company behind the proposal, Pelion Sunrise, say the centre will cost around $300m to build and attract 2.5 million visitors each year. It would be built in Sunrise near the Sawgrass Mills mall. Along with skiing and snowboarding there would be sledding, snowmobiling, ice skating and other sports. There would also be activities including go carts, paintball and a conference centre.

If it moves ahead on schedule the centre could open in autumn 2014, say the developers, who have been involved in previous, unsuccessful plans for indoor snow centres in the region.

Although an indoor snow centre has been built in New Jersey, USA, no indoor snow centre is currently open in North America.

The first indoor snow centre for Africa looks set to open in 2015 following the awarding of a $400m (US) construction contract by MAF Properties, the company behind Ski Dubai.

The Mall of Egypt in Cairo will house Africa’s first indoor snow slope as its main attraction. Construction is expected to begin within the next few month with a scheduled opening date of June 2015.

The slope will be part of a mall spread over a 400 hectare site in Sixth of October City on the edge of the Egyptian capital. The mall will house nearly 400 shops, a multiplex cinema and, like the mall of the Emirates home of Ski Dubai, a Carrefour hypermarket.

No announcement has been made as yet on the size of the slope, but early indications are that it will not be quite as big as that of Ski Dubai, which is one of the world’s 10 largest.

“Egypt’s strong economic fundamentals, such as its young and growing population, make it an attractive growth market,” Peter Walichnowski, chief executive of MAF Properties who run Ski Dubai and who have already invested $410 million in Egyptian malls including Maadi City Centre and Alexandria City Centre.

The Basingstoke Gazette reports...

An indoor ski slope is one option being considered for the regeneration of Basingstoke Leisure Park.

Town planners at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council , which owns the 45-acre leisure park, want to make it a “regional leisure destination” which could create 600 jobs.

The details of the plan are in a report prepared for the borough’s community wellbeing overview and scrutiny committee, which will meet next Wednesday to discuss the regeneration strategy.

As reported by The Gazette , specialist firm Airkix won permission this summer to build a £6million complex, which will include a “freefall” indoor wind tunnel for budding skydivers.

The report by the borough’s asset manager Nicholas Collins, states the council commissioned consultants to look at filling the remaining 15 acres with new attractions.

They found that an indoor ski slope would bring large numbers of people to the leisure park, but the report added that other indoor extreme sports, such as indoor caving and diving, are potential options.

It added: “In planning ahead, the council as landowner should be in a position to capture such uses in the future, repositioning what is a dated facility and moving with the times.”

The report also mentioned the scheme would have more value if there were supporting retail and restaurant facilities.

Areas earmarked for development include land between Gala Bingo and the bowls club, land to the south of Milestones Museum, and land to the east of McDonalds and KFC restaurants.

The report added land known as Saunders Field, which lies on the other side of Churchill Way West from the leisure park, could also be developed as an “enhanced public area”, but that a new footbridge could prove expensive.

The committee has been asked to endorse the regeneration strategy, including a proposal to find a development partner for the project, before the plan goes to Cabinet.

The meeting will take place at the Civic Offices from 6.30pm on Wednesday (yesterday).

Ski Trac International report that a Preliminary agreement has been signed to prepare for the construction of a 1600m x 1600m air-supported Megadome in the lead-up to the 2022 World cup Football Finals in Qatar.

The dome will be used as a tourist attraction before and after the games. Inside there’ll be multiple attractions including a revolving ‘Ski Mountain’ with skiing on what Ski-Trac say will be the world's longest ski run.

The dome will also house the world's longest surf waves, will boast the world's first indoor Yacht Marina, plus numerous other attractions.

But the most valuable contribution to the games, for visitors and locals alike, will be the temperature-modifying feature of the structure, which will provide a comfortable year-round atmosphere of 23 degress C against the sometimes 50 degrees of the summer months.

“This will be courtesy of some Australian air conditioning technology which will produce cooling at one-tenth the normal air conditioning cost. The one mile diameter dome will be the first of its kind, and compared to a similar size structure will be built for one fifth the normal cost,” says a Ski Trac statement.

www.ski-trac.com

Cold air is rarely a scarce commodity in winter in Ontario, but skiers and riders looking for a summer alternative may watch closely plans in formation for an indoor ski facility on the site of a dormant ski area near Loretto, about 40 minutes northwest of Toronto.

A little-known Mississauga, Ontario-based firm, Generation X Sports and Entertainment Group Inc., is proposing a 183,000 square-foot indoor snow dome, hotel, entertainment and retail complex dubbed the SnowPlex. Generation X officials indicate that they’ll submit plans to the council of the Township of Adjala-Torsorontio, although no timetable has been set.



“The Resort Development Team is in the early stages of submitting an application for a 17,000 square-meter indoor ski hill within the Township of Adjala-Tosorontio, rejuvenating an existing ski hill (the Loretto Ski Resort, just east of the Hockley Valley)”, company officials indicated in a press release issued last week. “By serving as an anchor within a Destination Village, this very unique resort is proposed to host a hotel, provide mixed retail and residential uses, while offering vast sporting and leisure based activities.”

Generation X officials estimate that the project will attract an estimated 2.5 million visits annually and create roughly 300 full- and part-time positions, not including those involved in construction.

Construction of the first snow dome in North America is presently nearing completion at The Meadowlands in northern New Jersey. Should it come to fruition, the project in Loretto would be the first of its kind in Canada.

In an unexpected twist in the decade old saga of North America’s first indoor snow centre, part of the American Dream complex in the Meadowlands in New Jersey.

The long saga of this development began more than a decade ago with a company called The Mills Corporation building a giant retail and leisure mall, then called Xanadu and with a $3 billion dollar price tag.

The complex incorporates the first indoor snow slope in North America to be actually built – it was completed and tested with snow made indoors in 2009 but never opened to the public – as part of the vast development close to Manhattan. Ironically the structure was damaged by heavy natural snow accumulating on its roof in the severe winter of 2010-11.

However with the economic crash, Mills Corporation (which had also built the Xanadu indoor snow centre in Madrid, Spain) went bust and the project, with more than $2 billion spent, was moth balled while a new operator was found.

That operator has over the past year or so been a company called Triple Five which runs many of North America’s leading and most successful shopping malls.

They have just announced an agreement with DreamWorks Animation to build a theme park on the site that will feature characters from DreamWorks films, including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar. The indoor ski slope still appears to be part of the latest variant on this epic development.

"American Dream at Meadowlands is poised to become a one-of-a-kind retail and entertainment destination in North America," Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO, DreamWorks Animation, said in a company release . "We look forward to working with Triple Five Worldwide to incorporate DreamWorks Animation characters, storytelling and technology into a unique and innovative family entertainment experience at the venue."

No time scale or final price tag has been put on completion of the project.

Snowbase Hospitality BV, Terneuzen (Zealand) and Snow Base Staff BV, Terneuzen (Zealand) have been officially declared bankrupt following a decision by the court in Middelburg on June 6th, 2012
Snow Base (snowbase.nl) is one of the world’s newer indoor snow slopes having only opened in 2008, it has a 330m slope.

An administrator Steven van Boven has been appointed and ski school equipment auctioned off.

Several potential new owners/operators for Snowbase have come forward including, reportedly, Nicky Broos owner of Skidôme in Rucphen.

Plans have been unveiled for a new 230 million Euro leisure complex incorporating an indoor snow slope in Belgium.

The new Cristal Park in Seraing will be built in the former industrial area of Val Saint Lambert which is famous for the production of crystal glass, after which the centre will be named.

If successful the slope will be the new third indoor snow centre in Belgium following the closure of Casablanca, one of the world’s original centres, with its replacement Casablanca 2 apparently permanently halted due to environmental objections.

Similarly a long planned centre to be called Snowgames in Lessen/Lessines near Brussels has failed to break ground over many years now.

The Cristal Park project, of which the indoor snow slope and other leisure and business facilities are the latest part, began in 2004 with the aim of restoring the Val Saint Lambert, which includes a chateau and the abbey which have been abandoned for more than 50 years.

Under the plans the 110 hectare park will also incorporate a retail village, a leisure centre, a water park, restaurants, cafés and other outdoor leisure activities (26,000 m2). There will also be housing, offices, a business park, a 120-room hotel and a new crystal glassworks.

The current plan is to begin preparing the site by the end of this year with the slope opening by 2016.

The first permanent indoor snow slope for Bahrain is reported to be due to start construction some 15 years after the first plans were unveiled for an indoor snow centre in the country.

Work is reported to be commencing on an overhaul of the country’s Grand Muharraq Garden with the revamped facility set to house Bahrain’s first-full size ice arena as well as the indoor ski slope, details of which have not yet been published.

The complex, sixty percent of which will be green space, will also include a theme park, restaurants, several health clubs, a centre for the elderly, the largest bowling centre in the middle east with 45 lanes and a commercial area.

Work on the $63.6m project is due to begin in January 2013 and is due to be completed by 2016.

Japan, which at one time had the biggest indoor snow centre and for many years the most indoor snow centres of any one country, as well as some of the world’s first such centres seems to be gradually falling out of love with the concept.

No new indoor snow centres have been built in Japan for more than a decade and in the past year at least three of the remaining indoor facilities have closed; Kamui Snowpark, Kuma Ski Land and Snova Hiroshima are all no more.

Japan is home to one of the world’s earliest indoor snow centres, Sayama, which opened in 1959. It has no refrigeration so is only cold enough for snow to last from October to May. Originally its operators brought enormous loads of large ice blocks to the venue each autumn which they crushed and spread across a plastic dry slope surface, but in 1992 they installed snowmaking machines.

There had been earlier indoor snow centres created in the 1920s in Berlin and Vienna using a chemical goo as a snow substitute and a modern version of that, called Snova, now spread on a refrigerated sloping surface, lay behind about a dozen indoor snow centres built in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s – the first decade of the ‘modern era’ of indoor skiing and snowboarding.

They included Ski in Tsudanama, one of three modern era indoor snow centres that opened almost simultaneously around 1987/88 in Australia, Belgium and Japan and all now closed.

In the early 1990s Japan built the world’s largest indoor snow centre, SSAWS, in Tokyo Harbour on earthquake-proof piles (reputedly to prevent the danger of an earthquake setting off an indoor avalanche) just as the country’s bubble economy was collapsing and a fanatical interest in skiing waned. It never broke even and closed a decade ago to make way for the country’s first Ikea.

Although as indoor ski areas in Europe and facilities like Ski Dubai and snow planet in New Zealand used ‘real’ snow as indoor snowmaking technology progressed, most of the Snova centres continued to operate with the original chemical mix. The majority of these centres have quite short slopes around 65m long, often given over to indoor half pipes and in some cases reserved for ‘snowboarders only’ survived however and have only begun closing recently as maintaining them has become less viable.

Besides Sayama, the four surviving centres are Kamui Misaka, Snova Hashima, Snova Yokahama (www.snovashinyoko.co.jp) and Snova Mizonokuchi-R246.

With only five indoor snow centres now believed to remain open there, Japan is equal with Germany and behind the UK and the Netherlands in terms of the number of indoor centres operational.

Snow Planet in The Netherlands will again be the location of one of the world’s best snow parks when options are limited to glaciers or the southern hemisphere for terrain park fans from late spring through summer.

The park is guaranteed to push users’ skills and throughout the summer with high-profile events scheduled and a big air bag to soften the landing.

Every first Tuesday of the month (except in May – when it will be the third Tuesday in May) there’s the Shred Tuesday Special. a night where that will feature prizes and extra swag for top performers.

Special events coming up include Singles vs Doubles Sunday, April 29 (15.00-20.00) in which skiers and snowboarders against each other for first place in the singles and doubles freestyle race.
The Slopestyle Cup on Saturday, May 26 (15.00-20.00) has the Dutch rookie team training hard to compete effectively in this discipline. So participants can measure their level with the Dutch rookies!

Hipster Madness Saturday on June 30 (15.00-20.00) Hipster Madness will see a big air contest on the specially constructed for this evening corner.

More events follow through to Sunday, September 23 (15.00-23.00) when the Summer Park Shut Down is already planned. At the end of the summer, Snow Planet will stage this all-out, all afternoon jam session with a track full of obstacles, a mountain of prizes and a barbecue on the sun deck.

www.snowplanet.nl

Snow World Landgraaf in The Netherlands, the world’s largest indoor ski centre by slope area, has resumed construction of a spectacular new outdoor park next to the centre after a three week halt in building work for the 2.7 million Euro Outdoor Park Snow World Landgraaf.

The delay had been caused by environmental campaigners saying the plans had not been fully investigated, but the court of Maastricht decided that in fact the studies underlying the building permit were fine.

Snow World Director Koos Hendriks was pleased, "It is extremely regrettable that the construction lay quiet for a few weeks, but despite everything we are pleased that we can continue with construction. We were convinced that the Church Landgraaf has acted properly in its acoustic tests which were disputed by those bringing the court action.”

The hoped for opening for the Easter weekend is no longer realistic, but it is expected that the Snow Park Outdoor World opened in early May.

www.snowworld.com

Snow World in The Netherlands, which operates two indoor snow centres in the country, has decided to abandon its plans to construction of a new fourth slope in Zoetermeer, but will instead extend the existing third slope at the facility to a length of 300m.

Extending the slope means a much smaller impact on the local landscape with the slope area increasing by 3,000m² rather than by the 12,000sqm the proposed new slope would have added.

The leading Nert5herlands wintersports website Skiiinfo.nl reported that Snow World made its decision after restrictions imposed by the local municipal government, under pressure from nature and environmental organizations and local residents, meant building the fourth slope became unworkable. This was mostly due to the restrictions meaning very costly structural adjustments would be needed making the project too expensive to be viable in the current economic climate.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) have said that the extended 300m long piste will be able to stage FIS sanctioned events, just as Snow World’s other facility at Landgraaf has organised the FIS Snowboard World Cup for the past nine years.

www.snowworld.com

A new indoor terrain park complete with indoor big air bag will open at the Skidome Ruchpen (www.skidome.nl) in the Netherlands this month.



The new Funpark features a Big Air, Medium Air, Big Airbag, Donkeydick rail, Single bar, Double kinked rail, Straight box, Beginners rail and beginners box.

The official opening of the fun park will take place on Saturday, March 10, 2012 with past and present Dutch ski and board stars in attendance and prizes and giveaways galore.

Daytime freestylers of all levels of freestyle ski and snowboard clinics follow. These clinics are taught by real Snowpro programs, including even former Dutch champions.

In the evening there’ll be the first of the new Snowpark Shreds with a live DJ Booth and from 10pm to 1am an after party in the centre’s Bierstube.

Pre-registration to attend all or any of the events is advised. Registration on the day will be permitted unless the event has already reached capacity.

A mandate has been signed by Ski Trac www.skitrac.com with the tourism corporation of the Lesotho Government to commence the development stage of the Maseru Twin Domes.

Financial assistance is being granted to make this a major tourist attraction in South Africa.

In addition to the standard features of the Ski and Space Domes, a major attraction will be the Orange River Raft Safari which will occupy three levels of the Space Dome.

Each twelve-man raft will pass through recreated landscapes commencing at the origin of the river high in the mountains of Lesotho and depict on both sides the life and story of this historic river as it makes its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The river will also feature on Skyline's Surround-180 five-projector cinema screen which will wrap the viewer within the breath-taking scenery.