Giant Rotating Wheel to 'Revolutionize' Indoor Skiing
- Editor OGN Daily
- Nov 5
- 1 min read
An Australian company is making a giant, rotating ski barrel designed to make the experience of carving endless fresh snow available to city folk without a long drive.
Indoor ski training is nothing new - but the space and cost requirements of a state-of-the-art indoor ski slope are getting pretty extreme. And getting more so.
Unsurprisingly, it's China that's taking the lead on such mammoth facilities with a new 'ski resort' currently under construction in Shenzhen, China, which features a 441 m (1,447 ft) ski slope covering an area equivalent to 11 soccer fields, complete with ski lifts ready to tow visitors up the 83 m (272 ft) vertical climb to the starting line.
Hence the idea of the Snowtunnel - a smaller ski training facility built around a rotating barrel that puts skiers and snowboarders inside an endless slope where the snow's perpetually freshly groomed, while asking far less in terms of land requirements and upfront costs.
Which is not to say these snowy hamster wheels will be small - each massive cylinder has a 12.5-m (41-ft) diameter and extends some 16 m (52.5 ft) across - roughly as wide as an average ski run, so it still takes up a space that's roughly the size of a four-story apartment block.
The first Snowtunnel Park is scheduled to open in 2027, most likely in Australia, with the location to be announced next year.
