Snow tube aims to make skiing a summer option

Snow tube aims to make skiing a summer option

By Hugh Williamson in Berlin

Published: March 25 2008 01:56 | Last updated: March 25 2008 01:56

Forget climate change; welcome to year-round skiing – of a sort. From next year cross-country skiers at a top German resort will also be donning their skis in mid-summer, thanks to the construction of the world’s most advanced “ski tunnel”.

The above-ground concrete tube, which will be built on a course snaking 2km through the forests around Oberhof, eastern Germany, will have a bed of artificial snow, special lighting and windows and advanced air conditioning, according to Ralf Luther, the official responsible for the €13m ($20m, £10m) publicly funded project.

The 17 metre-wide tunnel, which won planning permission this month, “will be a first for Germany and the most advanced in the world”, Mr Luther said. A few similar tubes in Finland, Sweden and Siberia were “rather basic by comparison”, he added.

German ski resorts, like those in other countries, have suffered in recent years as higher temperatures have meant less snow and fewer visitors, but Oberhof – a former training centre for communist East Germany’s cross-country skiers – hopes the new facility will secure its future.

“Germany’s top athletes in biathlon [combining cross-country skiing and shooting] will use it, but so will tourists,” Mr Luther said. The complex is scheduled to open in June 2009.

Stefan Schwarzbach, of Germany’s ski federation, says the tunnel is a part of the skiing industry’s response to climate change, rather than “the one and only answer” to global warming. The tunnel’s year-round usage means athletes who in previous summers travelled higher up Austria’s mountains to train on glaciers can now practise at home, he said.

Mr Schwarzbach rejected environmentalists’ concerns that such projects are misguided and costly attempts to turn back global warming, which he described as outdated thinking.

“We could have had this discussion 30 years ago when towns started building indoor ice-skating rinks.” Now almost every European town has such a rink and no one asks why, he said.

“We accept there will be snow-free winters, but we also need innovative solutions such as the tunnel.”

Ralf Luther said the tunnel would bring extra publicity to Oberhof, which lies south-west of Leipzig in one of Germany’s weakest economic regions. The town hosts annual five-day biathlon world cup races, raising €20m, but extra attractions are needed.

Unlike the tunnels in northern Europe, Mr Luther said, his tube will cover not just flat but also rugged terrain, and will have temperature controls to ensure skiers do not fall ill because of climatic differences between the inside and outside.