Madrid | Skiing in a shopping mall

(Arroyomolinos) They take off their sandals and put on a ski suit, click the hooks on the boots and put on the gloves. It is over 30 degrees that afternoon in Madrid, but the clients of the indoor ski resort Snozone ignore the torpor of summer… and the questions related to the environment.

An icy breeze hits visitors from the lobby. After the polar bear at the entrance, ski racks, non-slip mats and padlocked lockers immerse holidaymakers in another world.

In Arroyomolinos, about twenty kilometres south of Madrid, the Xanadu shopping centre has been home to Snozone since 2003, which offers a 250-metre long inclined track covered in artificial snow, open 365 days a year from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Between a chairlift and a ski lift, at -3°, around thirty skiers hurtle down the slope of the gigantic hangar under artificial light, and under the amused gaze of onlookers gathered behind the bay windows.

For two hours of skiing, you should expect to pay around forty euros ($60) for equipment and clothing.

“Not very ecological”

The Carcassonne Ski Club has been coming here for seven years, explains Thomas Barataud, an instructor at the Angles resort in the Pyrénées Orientales: “Back then, we skied on the glaciers in the summer, but the situation makes it a bit complicated. Here, we have hard snow and cold to keep the kids skiing, it’s the top “.

The ten or so “competition section” students will, for a week, take part in slaloms on the section reserved for clubs, with a very hard and more technical surface.

“It’s not very ecological,” admits this 43-year-old instructor, “but what we’re looking for is performance and skiing. We adapt to what’s offered to us, and that’s a good alternative.”

“When you go out at 4 p.m., it’s weird, you’re in shorts and flip-flops!” he says, laughing.

One of her students, Cyrila Pena, also describes “a thermal shock: you get sun in your face in the evening.”

Although the 18-year-old finds the setting “great”, she admits that “when I talk about it to my friends, some of them say to me ‘But aren’t you ashamed to go skiing inside?'”

“I think that if past generations had paid attention to ecology, we would have simply skied on glaciers,” she continues. “Now, we are forced to come ski indoors because otherwise, we start putting on our skis in December, and that’s too late.”

The place welcomes around 200,000 people each year, 1,800 on a good day.

Fridge

The high season is the same as for the mountain resorts, from October to March, says Snozone director Javier Villar: “either people come because they are beginners and want to get back into shape, or they are competition teams that come to us from France, England, all over Spain, and Andorra to prepare, because there is no more snow in the mountains.”

He says that water consumption is much lower than that of a gymnasium and that it is mainly electricity that represents a major expense: “It’s a fridge. If we had to turn it off and cool it down again, the energy expenditure would be huge, that’s why we are open all year round.”

The company has invested in solar panels, an investment he calls “very profitable, not only in terms of carbon footprint, but also economically.”

The Snozone group, which is owned by British property company Capital & Regional, has two other indoor stations, both in England.

The world’s largest and most famous indoor ski resort is Ski Dubai in the Gulf.

While the Madrid summer is sweltering outside, inside, noses are running.

A surfer attempts a trick on the ramp. Izan Romano, a 20-year-old bricklayer from Madrid, is a regular. Thanks to his 600-euro ($900) annual membership, he comes four to five times a week.

“Summer, winter, it doesn’t matter, there’s always snow, it’s my oxygen bubble, I forget what’s outside”, and in particular “the 38 degrees it’s at home”.

“Some people go to the swimming pool, I take the car and go to the snow.” The environment? He says he “doesn’t think about it.”