Experts And Beginners Can Ski All Year On Faux Snow.

Many years ago, we remember when the town of Etobicoke, ONT, a suburb of Toronto, used its municipal trash collection to build a ski hill. That’s a clue to how geographically feature-less the terrain around Toronto is.  While the greater Toronto area has at least 10 ski areas in driving range of the city and reasonable ski ticket prices, the dimensions are modest.

Shredding is possible on "dryslope" faux snow.
Shredding is possible on
“dryslope” faux snow.

Into this mileau comes a bold idea: Indoor Skiing.  We’ve seen how indoor skiing has been tried in other parts of the world, most notably at Tokyo’s Lalaporte Skidome SSWAS.   There’s also one in the Middle East called Ski Dubai which features real snow and penguins.

Now, a company is building a 20,000 square foot indoor facility in Vaughan, ONT, just north of Toronto.  Axis Freestyle Academy is billed as “Canada’s Indoor Ski and Snowboard Progression Park”, a year-round dry snow, aka, dryslope, training facility.  There is also a 4,000 square-foot trampoline area for fitness and fun.  The ski hill is divided between open slope for beginners and terrain filled with rails and jumps for experts or wannabes.

SkiDubai's indoor ski area has real snow, interesting features, and cold temps.
SkiDubai’s indoor ski area has real snow, interesting features, and cold temps.

In any case, Torontonians—especially young ones—will have another option to practice and prepare for winter.  On second thought, we’re curious if some folks find the faux snow appealing enough to stick with the indoor facility all year round.  Oh, no lifts, by the way.  It’s a walk-up; that won’t be too bad because the elevation is 17 feet.

The facility is scheduled for opening in June 2016.

Here’s an artsy two-minute view of what snowboarding can be like on a “dryslope”.

 

 

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