Snowtube

Video credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko

Slope Infinity

Practicing skiing on the trainer. This was surprisingly hard.

I am feeling more than a bit silly. A moment ago I was walking in the streets of Hong Kong, carrying my skis, wearing my ski pants and feeling a little bit silly. The outfit did not fit in the hot and humid city streets and it was inconvenient to carry the skis in the crowd. But now it turned out that I can not use the skis at Slope Infinity. And it was also warm, so shorts or other light pants would be have been a better idea than the ski clothing.

Slope Infinity is at 148 Electric Street, Hong Kong

Oh well, I have already gotten plenty of experience from feeling silly and being looked at on the streets. What is that guy doing?



But what is important is that Slope Infinity was open. This is half an hour earlier than they would normally open, but they were kind enough to open it earlier so that I could do a test run and still make it to my flight out of Hong Kong. This was my first visit to Hong Kong, lasting eight hours (including a night). Clearly, the most important thing to do was to try the skiing.

The bottom surface of the skis 

So what is Slope Infinity? As the name says, it is an opportunity to do an infinitely long ski run. I soon found out that my muscles are not trained for infinite use, however. The set up is basically a downward sloping treadmill, a fast moving plastic carpet. This is something that I had not seen before and I thought I had already tried all kinds of indoor skiing. It is an attractive setup because it takes only a small amount of space, needs no refrigeration and can be controlled in various ways to find a suitable speed and steepness for the skiers.

But it is also special in many ways. The feeling is different, like going to a gym instead of the mountains.

More importantly, the plastic carpet sticks harder to skis than snow. The first implication is that regular skis cannot be used. Slope Infinity uses special skis that have minimal friction on this surface. Regular skis would be in danger of melting on these slopes.

The second implication is that your handling of the skis and turns will be different. If you are not careful, the carpet can catch your ski and drag it backwards, making you fall. Turns have to be done very carefully, at least when the carpet is running at a high speed.

Finally, no ski lifts are needed. If you need to go up the slope, put your skis in snowplow mode, or turn sideways to the slope. The moving carpet will take you upwards.

Skiing on the big slope. Skier: Anthony, my instructor.

Slope Infinity has two slopes. At first I thought that the big, main slope was the interesting one. But it turns out that it runs at a relatively slow pace and is at a relatively shallow angle. You can make some turns, but they will be slow. I found the small trainer slope far more interesting. A challenge, in fact. The trainer is a treadmill-size slope where you attach yourself to harness from the roof to prevent falls from taking you to the dangerous end of the carpet. There is a handrail right in front and behind you, so movements will not be big. But the angle and speed of this trainer slope can be adjusted, and at least for a beginner on plastic slopes, it can be made to run very fast. It was a challenge for me to keep myself out of the handrails and not letting the carpet yank skis from me.

I can imagine that skiing regularly on the trainer would improve my skiing. Snow is so forgiving that using the trainer would force me to pay more attention to exactly how I use my skis. Even if the specific moves differ a bit between snow and carpet, for instance on the carpet we do not edge the skis very much.

You can go up with the snowplow technique, stopping the sliding

The big slope has another use, however. It is a good platform for teaching kids and beginners, given its gentle angle and speed. Two small kids entered the slope right after I had left it, and seemed to be learning quite well.

A whopping 2 meter altitude difference

Important Parameters

My half an hour in the slope cost 460 HK$ or about 43 €. This is not cheap, but it is a very special experience and comes with a personal instructor who guides you to the right moves. Compare this price to the cost of renting equipment and a ski instructor. For repeat customers that do not need the instructor, an hour at the training slope costs 290 HK$, which is a very reasonable price.

I am skiing on the big slope

Slope Infinity is at 148 Electric Road, Hong Kong. I stayed the night in the nearby Causeway Bay Empire Hotel at a typical big city hotel price, though in my case I had to stay somewhere during the weekend anyway on my three week long business trip, and the other options were in similar or even more expensive large cities.

The main ski slope - or is this the beginner run?

I had no time to eat anything while in Hong Kong, so I cannot report on what the Hong Kong Goulash index might be. In general, everything else except hotels should be relatively cheap here, however. I'm guessing there is no special after ski, given that almost no one seemed to know about Slope Infinity in the surrounding areas. The hotel staff had not heard about this place, for instance (but they have now).

Recommendation

Slope Infinity is a specialty in the ski world, for sure. But it is an opportunity to ski in an otherwise snow free part of the world. I would come back if I have future trips to Hong Kong. In particular, I liked the friendly staff, the ability to use the trainer for improving your ski technique, and the challenge that makes skiing on the trainer harder than on snow.

Entrance to Slope Infinity 

Taxi ride with skis. This is starting to become a familiar exercise.

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko

Opening Tour

My plans for the round the world trip have solidified. Slope Infinity will open their indoor slope earlier than normal so that I can make a visit on my short stop in Hong Kong on November 12th. I will ski in Happo One in Japan on their opening day on Nov 19th. And Alyeska, Alaska on their opening day on Nov 23rd. Fingers crossed that my travel goes without issues and that the areas open as planned.

Opening day at Happo One, Japan

I would also have part of  one day free in Beijing, and could in theory try skiing there. Unfortunately, I've already been twice to the indoor place in Beijing, and it seems that the real ski areas do not open until late November or December. If anyone knows a ski area that is already open, let me know!

Opening day at Alyeska, Alaska

Otherwise, the only question is whether I should take one or two sets of skis with me on this trip. I recently purchased light weight touring skis and boots. My skis are K2 superlights, boots are Garmont Helix's and bindings are Dynafit touring bindings. These are all extremely lightweight, so they are good for going up. But they are good only for that and for a careful descent. The binding release mechanism is limited, so for safety reasons I would rather ski mostly on my regular skis.

The question is, am I likely to find myself in a situation where I need the light skis? Not according to my plan, but ... many things can go wrong on my trip, bad weather could delay the openings beyond my visit, flight delays could change my plans completely, etc. In Alaska I have three days to ski, so it would also be possible that I'll find some off-piste touring possibilities. However, the drawback with dragging two sets of skis around the world is that some airlines may charge for the additional weight. I won't be paying anything on Finnair, but I am less sure about the others. I'll be flying on Cathay Pacific, Dragon Airlines, Japan Airlines, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and British Airways. There will be at least some legs where I have to pay $10 per extra for one kilo of luggage, so getting the weight down will be important. Unless they respect One World Emerald frequent flyers somehow... from past experience with some of these airlines, I'm guessing that is not going to happen.

Resting on the sofa and getting used to the new boots

By the way, the first picture above is about Lonely Planet guides for this trip. I really love these books. I keep buying other books as well, but while the Lonely Planets are short on colorful pictures and they make boring reading from cover to cover, they also have the largest amount of information. Almost without exception there is more information about hiking, skiing, and climbing opportunities than in any other general purpose travel guide.

I bought the Alaska guide almost a year ago, and it is only now that I get to use it. Incidentally, some of the other books that I have about possible future places include Moscow, Turkey, and Iran. Unfortunately, recent news indicates that a military attack against Iran may be in the planning, so traveling to Iran at this time may be too risky, even for me. Too bad. I hope that the situation is better in the future, it would be a great place to visit. For instance, Tochal, a local ski hill near Teheran, has a ski lift that goes all the way up to 3,740 meters.

The new skis

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko, Alyeska ski area, and Happo One ski area

38,000 Kilometers for Nothing

Map of my route, courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper

I am about to take yet another round the world trip, a three week and 38,000 kilometer journey. It may be for nothing.

Don't get me wrong. There are important meetings along the way. But when I travel I also want to do some fun things during weekends and evenings. Skiing, if it is at all possible. In the last two years I have been on some kind of a trip almost every week, and only left my skis home on three of these trips. But this time it is very difficult to find skiing. My route is challenging. My schedule is too tight. It is the wrong time of the year. I might complete this trip and not find any skiing at all, or only visit one or two indoor ski places. Or make lengthy and costly side trips only to find out that there are no open ski areas yet.

My route

My route takes me through Beijing, but this time I have no time to visit the local indoor ski place. Besides I was there just a few weeks ago. For some reason, I was able to acquire a round-the-world trip ticket that stops twice in Hong Kong, however, and they have Slope Infinity, a different type of indoor skiing. I hope that the few hours that I have on my first stop will allow me to make a visit.

I also have a day and a half in Tokyo. But weather and ski area opening dates are the unknown factor here. Apparently, some areas might open mid-November. Japan has fast trains and good air travel; it might be possible to reach these places. How would you like skiing in Alts Bandai, Fukushima Prefecture, for instance? A shiny example of Japanese ski destinations, I'm sure. As a backup option there are indoor ski locations around the country, for instance, in Yokohoma.

Pu'u 'O'o

But what I really wanted to do on this trip is to make a stop over in Hawaii. Unfortunately, One World round-the-world tickets did not seem to make that possible. What I wanted to do is to drive up Mauna Kea, climb the snowy parts, and ski down. This would have added yet another state and yet another volcano to my list. But even at 13,000 feet, Manua Kea is unlikely to have snow in November. Maybe on another trip, January and February are the best times to visit this mountain. Of course, such a trip would not be completely without dangers. As the Hawaii ski club says: "Due to safety and environmental-impact issues and health concerns, the Hawaii Ski Club no longer sponsors group ski trips to the Mauna Kea volcano". To catch the snow, one may have to travel at a few day's notice. The high altitude, road closures, and likelihood of high winds conspire to make successful access to this mountain an unlikely event at the right time to find the snow.

Napau

In any case, Hawaii is always a recommended place to visit. Volcano sightings are guaranteed, you might even get a view of the red stuff. I made another stop here in a similar business trip ten years ago: 29 hours on the islands and still had time for an inter-island flight, driving a couple of hundred miles around the Big Island, acquire a hiking permit from the rangers, hike 20 miles, and camp alone one night on the slopes of the Pu'o 'O'o. The company saved on hotel costs that night.

Camping out near the Pu'u 'O'o volcano. Alone.

But now I am flying over Hawaii, direct to San Francisco. And this is where I will attempt to find some real skiing, by flying to Anchorage, Alaska after my meetings are over. The Alyeska ski area might open on the day that I am going there. Assuming the snow has arrived by then. I might find out that I dragged myself and my skis there for nothing.

Puu Huluhulu

Photo credits (c) 2001-2011 by Jari Arkko and the Great Circle Mapper

Speed Skiing in Germany

The ski hall is a very visible landmark in Neuss

There are no speed limits in German highways, right? Wrong. I got a speeding ticket yesterday on my small 650 kilometer detour to ski in Jever Skihalle.

"That guy is spending all his time on the ski slopes". I get that a lot. The reality is that I have two or three good trips per year, but all the rest is squeezed in already incredibly tight time schedules on business trips. Spending late evenings on the road for a precious few minutes of skiing. In this case I am on a family weekend trip to visit museums in Germany, and my schedule was, if possible, even tighter. I applied for a permission to disappear at 7 PM. However, since we are in Sinsheim the nearest skiing was 325 kilometers away in Neuss, Germany. In the good old times this would be an hour's trip, but today stau and speed cameras are making it a slightly more tedious. My trip takes three hours one way, two hours on the site, and back in Sinsheim at 3AM.  And even with all this slow crawl through the highway system, I still got a ticket. For exceeding the speed limit by 11 kilometers an hour. Completely accidentally, of course.

Evening on a German highway

Incidentally, during this year I have collected tickets from California, New Hampshire, Poland, Slovakia, and now Germany. Luckily not all have lead to an actual ticket that I had to pay, in some cases we were left off with a warning. I've also had an accident in India (not my fault) and scratched my car twice while parking. Not a record that I am particularly proud of, but I drive a lot and most of these cases were mistakes. Such as not knowing we had to pay highway tax, crossing a forbidden direction sign to find space to turn our car around, or missing a reduced speed sign. But I know I will never again rent a car in Brussels, because every time I have done it I have ended up damaging the car while parking.

Indoor skiing at Neuss

But back to more important topics, i.e., skiing. This is day three of my season and the third country I have skied in. So far only indoor skiing. Not good, but better than nothing.



Jever Skihalle is a modern indoor sports and entertainment complex near the Dutch border between Düsseldorf and Köln. They house skiing, tubing, climbing, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and a classy hotel. When I arrived Friday evening at 10PM, a steady stream of party goers were arriving to the nightclubs and bars. The ski slope is the most visible landmark around, but otherwise skiing appeared to be like a small side note at the time. I entered through the nightclub door, for instance, and had to find my way through the building to the ski area.

Jever has one main slope and one beginner area. The main slope also offers a snow park with some rails and jumps. The beginner area has a tubing area and an ice bar.

A view from the top of the main slope

The main slope is nice for two reasons. One, this is yet another indoor ski area that likes to run its snow cannons during the opening hours. I think this is awesome, as it creates a winter feeling, reduces visibility to the structures, and creates a more realistic skiing experience. Not to mention that skiing on fresh snow is nice. Two, they have the only indoor quad chair lift that I have seen besides the one in Dubai. The lift in Dubai is painfully slow, but this one runs at the same speed a chair lift would run on a real mountain. At least a non-detachable ski lift. The lift can take 5000 people up the "mountain" per hour.

The main entrance

The main slope is OK to ski, but it is a bit too short and a notch steeper gradient would have made the slope far more fun to ski. Now it feels like making a turn slows you down too much. There is race training on this slope, but I suspect the racers too would like a bit steeper slope. Short slopes are OK, as long as the skiing is fun. As it is, the Jever slope is fun to ski for a while but I would probably get bored after a couple of hours.

Top of the main slope

There are ten or fifteen other customers on the slope during my visit. I think that is quite a reasonable turnout for late Friday evening. The chair lift can definitely handle a large crowd on weekends.

On the chair lift

After-ski

I was amazed by the after-ski possibilities. As mentioned, the main door takes you to the nightclubs and bars. Never mind that probably no one from the bar crowd had been skiing earlier, there was definitely a big party.

Note the mountain views in after-ski

If I didn't have to drive back to Sinsheim, I would have checked my gear to the garderobe and gone to the bar.

After-ski

Verdict

My overall verdict for this indoor site is as follows. On the plus side:

• Real winter feeling, excellent snow
• Best lift system that I have seen indoors
• Best after-ski that I have seen indoors, competitive even with the real ski resort after-ski

The sign at the main entrance

On the negative side:

• Steeper ski run would be nice. Of course, this applies to most indoor ski slopes.
• Main ski slope is narrow and crowded due to the snow park being on the same slope.
• Road access is patrolled by speed cameras.

Important Parameters

Never Skihalle is at An Der Skihalle 1, Neuss, Germany. They are open every day of the year from 9 to 23, which is important to people like me who only make it there late in night. An evening ticket costs 25€, a day ticket 29€, and for some reason they sold me a one hour student ticket for 18€. The ticket cards cost an additional 4€, but if you return the ticket you get those euros back. They rent not just ski equipment but also clothing. Skis and poles alone are 7€/day and an all-inclusive packet is 16€/day.

A soup in the Salzburger Hochalm restaurant costs 3.50€. There are plenty of on-piste and on-site restaurant and bar options.

The main ski slope

The main ski slope is 110 meters high and 300 meters long, and the steepness at the top is 28%. Skiing down the slope takes about 25 seconds.

Other Slopes

I have now skied in 9 of the 40 slopes and 5 of the 15 countries in the Wikipedia list of indoor ski slopes, as well as one country (Indonesia) and slope that is not on that list. On this trip I actually wanted to tick off another one, Snowhall in Amneville, France, but I ended up not being too interested in spending another night driving. Hopefully future trips will allow a visit there. Snowhall is the world's longest indoor ski slope at 620 meters. It should be easy to arrange a visit on some future trip to Belgium, Germany or France. I should also visit the remaining ones in the Netherlands and Germany; there are a few left. I am also hoping that I can visit Japanese indoor ski areas some day. I already tried this in 2009 in Hiroshima, but the slope there was closed just before my visit.

It is snowing at the top!

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko

The Forbidden Drive

Views from the trail

Unfortunately, this is not a story about skiing. I made a mistake, did not do my research. I am on a business trip through Stockholm, London, and Philadelphia. And I failed to look up possible skiing destinations along the way, missing the fact that there are indoor ski areas in the UK. If I had more time between my flights in and out of Heathrow, I could have visited one of them and collected yet another country that I have not skied in. Doh! Oh well, maybe next time.

Boat race next to a balloon from the zoo

As a result, this blog is about biking. As you may know, I don't collect only ski destinations. I also collect cities that I have biked in. Today's tour was in Philadelphia. The city itself is not that friendly for bikers (but certainly easier than New York or Paris). But there are plenty of park areas that are great for biking. I made a 50 kilometer tour through the Schuykill and Fairmont parks, ending up in the Forbidden Drive, a winding dirt road along the Wissahickon Creek. This was a nice bike tour, with plenty of nature, forest, rivers, but also people and interesting buildings and cafes. The name "Forbidden Drive" comes from the many attempts to open this trail for vehicles. I am very glad that they have not done it and it remains a quiet, beautiful park area today.

Biking towards the Forbidden Drive

I rented by bike for 50$ per day at the Breakaway Bikes, on the corner of 19th Street and Chestnut. Their service was friendly and hassle-free, and the bikes were in excellent condition.

Schuykill river views

I ate lunch at the Valley Green Inn, which was a friendly place, albeit with a somewhat US-centric and limited menu mostly consisting of sandwiches. For comparison, their soup of the day costs 5$.

Chamonix? Not quite...

Photo credits (c) 2011 by Jari Arkko

Peer Review

This is the second day of my ski season and I am at Peer, Belgium. My plan is to ski at the Snow Valley, a small indoor ski hall. Yesterday I was skiing in Beijing, and today I will try to do so in Belgium. The next days would be spent in meetings in the European commission, but I was not about let that prevent me from having some fun exercise this evening. My travel through the airport and on the road went smoothly, and was quickly at Peer.

Snowboard park from the outside

But Snow Valley's ticket office wanted to prevent me from skiing there. They had forbidden bringing backpacks to the ski area, and they seemed adamant to hold on to their policy. After some negotiations with the manager in charge I was allowed to pass the gates. They did ask me to put the pack in the ground and not ski with it, a request that I had to disobey if I wanted to take pictures. Luckily, at this late hour the area was practically empty from both other customers and management, so I got to carry my pack undisturbed.

The Grote Skipiste

I understand that it can be dangerous to use a backpack in the ski slopes, except when the pack has padding that prevents the contents from hurting your back if you fall on it. If you ski with something else than clothing in your pack, please make sure that you have a suitable pack! In particular, carrying heavy SLRs on your unprotected pack is dangerous - not recommended.

Snowboard park from the top

Snowboard park from the outside

When I arrived at the slope, two dozen kids were busy using a race track built by the local ski club. These indoor ski halls are excellent for training racing. They are easily accessible, open long into the night, and at least here in Peer steep enough to build a race track. Short, and not overly challenging, but still good practice. The ice surface on on the slope is adding to the difficulty of the race track. My skis are still in bad shape from our off-piste tours in Africa, and I have trouble edging my skis.

Racer's platform

The layout of the Snow Valley slopes is that the main ski slope is to the left, a beginner's slope is next to it, and on the far right there is a separately housed snowboard park. The snowboard park looked fun, having several jumps and rails.

Snowboard park from the bottom

Important Parameters

Snow Valley is a few kilometers from the center of Peer, a small village 100 kilometers from Brussels.  A one hour lift ticket costs 15€, for 19€ rental skis are also included. I did not have time to test their restaurant, so I can not say what the Goulash index is here. But Belgium is a very expensive country in general.

Grote Skipiste from the outside

Their "Grote Skipiste" (large ski run) is 235 meters long and 42 meters high. You know that this is a small hill when they have to count the height at 1 meter accuracy. Skiing down the large ski run took about 20 seconds for me.

I'm on a magic carpet!

The ski lifts were a positive surprise here. All the lifts are of the magic carpet type, but there is enough of them, on both sides of the large ski run. And they are fast for this type of a lift.

Signs leading to the area

Snow Valley is not the only indoor ski arena in Belgium, there are two others. I have been to another one as well, Ice Mountain in Comines. This is a 210 meters long ski area that likes to keep their snow cannons on during the day, making the experience feel more natural. Comines is 114 kilometers from Brussels.

Ice Mountain, Comines, Belgium 

Snowstorm, inside

Next Steps

I also had the intent to pick an indoor ski area in one of the neighboring countries (probably France) and spend a third consecutive day skiing. That plan failed when it turned out that I needed to find a dentist to fix a filling that had come out, and searching for the dentist took all my free time the next day. Maybe on the next visit...

Returning home from Brussels

Grote Skipiste from the outside

Photo credits (c) 2010-2011 by Jari Arkko