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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
Prior to the first permanent dry slopes in the 1960s, there were two development stages in England. The first involved teaching skiing on flat gradient ‘hard surfaces’ (in school halls and playgrounds, village halls and the like) as pictured above. The second was the development of a brush board portable slope – effectively large wooden boards where the brushes were
Read more
Work on a world-class freestyle dry ski slope is reported to be underway in Belgium. Unlike most existing dry ski slopes, the centre will have the dry ski slope element on sloping structures built above the hill top in a similar way to the inruns on ski jumping towers, with the hillside where an old dry ski slope once existed
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
A plan to build a ski slope on the specially designed sloping sides of a giant power station in Copenhagen has been making world headlines ever since the idea was first unveiled more than six years ago. The building appeared ready for the slope to be installed nearly two years ago and work began on the install last winter with
Read more
One of the world’s leading dry ski centres is to get a major cash injection from the local council to transform it in to a multi-sport outdoor activity centre. The Hillend dry ski centre above Edinburgh, also known as the Midlothian Snowsports Centre, located in a prominent position on hillside above the Scottish capital, has been one of the world’s
Read more
dryslopenews.com 