A £300,000 fun slope is to be part of as major redevelopment of the Hillend dry ski centre above Edinburgh in Scotland. Midlothian Council, which runs the centre, announced plans for a £13.8 million investment in to the facility, currently officially known as the Midlothian Snowsport Centre, earlier this year, but issued the request to tender for the new slope

Italian firm Neveplast has built their first artificial ski slope in Spain. The installation in the town of Virgen de la Vega close to Valencia is 60 metres long and 15 metres wide and is made with the company’s Np30+ surface, the latest surface type developed by Neveplast and the same as the company used on the Copenhill waste-to-energy plant,

The New South Wales provincial government in Australia has said it will invest $5 million Australian dollars in a new year round freestyle training centre, complete with year-round dry slopes, ramps and a modern slope-hugging big air bag. The new National Snowsports Training Centre (NSTC) in Jindabyne, close to the ski resorts of perisher and Thredbo, will help the country’s

A Canadian-born ski enthusiast Jacques “Jack” Brunel dreamed he could make snow on Mount Beacon in New York state in August. He achieved this in 1956, gaining nationwide attention in the US, by placing ground up pieces of plastic placed over a matting of surplus nylon parachutes, which in turn lay on a base of cotton batting (Brunel later patented

One of the world’s first slopes with a plastic ‘comb’ surface opened in early 1967, at the time the longest in the world.  In common with other early French dry slopes it was built near the coast, this time near Dieppe, backed by the owner of the local casinos. The opening ceremony was attended by the greatest French skiers of

A 250 metre long ski slope was created in 1938 on the south west French coast at Arcachon on the shores of the Bay of Biscay.  Known as Créppins, the slope was  covered with pine needles (locally called grépin) which offered what were described as, “very good gliding conditions.” It was used especially for training in slalom, downhill and even

A year round dry-ski slope centre in Colorado is reported to be moving forward after its developers got permission to start work on a former waste site and convert it in to a ski area. The site’s developers have just got formal permission to redevelop the former landfuill site in to a recreation area with ski slope. The ski slope

A conveyor ski machines centre has opened in Dubai. The Infinite Ski centre uses two Ski Maxxtracks machines with rotating slopes with the ski surface coming towards you like a runners treadmill, sloping downhill and with a much larger surface, so users can ski or snowboard ‘forever.’  Or at least as long as the machine is switched on. Located in