The world's new largest indoor snow centre has opened in Shanghai. It's currently in a "soft-opening" phase with full operations set to begin on September 6th.
Currently known as L*SNOW, the project has been on the drawing board and under construction for almost a decade. Originally named Wintastar, it has 90,000 square metres of indoor snow space, about 20,000 more than the previous largest in the city of Harbin in Northeastern China, which opened in 2016.
For skiers the centre has three main runs of up to 450 metres in length and nearly 100 metres of vertical. The main S Curve descent is reported to have gradients of up to 22 degrees making it the steepest yet indoors. An indoor gondola takes skiers to the top of the runs and there are also chair and conveyor lifts, including the first indoor eight seater chair.
The complex also contains and large non-ski snow play area and a water park section of the vast building is set to open, partly on the roof, in 2025. The roof is also covered in solar panels which are in different colours to create a mural of a skier for passing aircraft.
The facility has three international hotels with 1,000 bedrooms between them and includes the possibility of year-round ski-in, ski-out accommodation.
