Roll Out of Indoor Snow Centres Planned for USA
25th May 2021
Last modified on May 28th, 2021
The company Alpine-X has ambitious plans as it reveals a flagship venue in Washington DC. There are plans for 20 more, but will the US learn to fall in love with skiing and snowboarding indoors?
Alpine-X is a Virginia-based development company and today it announced its vision for building indoor snowsports destinations across the USA.
Fairfax Peak is the company’s first development project and will feature an indoor snowsports venue along with an hotel, gravity-powered mountain coaster, zip lines, multiple food/drinks outlets and other facilities.
Indoor snowsports venues are common and successful in Europe and other parts of the world, but the U.S. has been slow to catch on.
There are five in the UK and earlier The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead to the north of London took over running the Chill Factore in Manchester.
The announcement was made in early April:
The Snow Centre, Image c/o PlanetSKI
Perhaps the most famous international indoor slope is in Dubai.
Ski Dubai. Image © PlanetSKI.
PlanetSKI sampled its delights back in 2018.
Ski Dubai. Image © PlanetSKI.
Alpine-X plans to build more than 20 other slopes in North America if they generate interest.
“Today, there are an estimated 9.2 million active skiers and snowboarders here in the U.S., a market that would be much larger if the sport were more accessible,” said the CEO of Alpine-X, John Emery.
“We’re on a mission to address this market gap by bringing snowsports closer to home and providing access year-round, thereby eliminating the traditional challenges of cost, geography and seasonality, and introducing the opportunity and family-centric experience to a much wider audience.”
The Alpine-X management team claims to have seasoned entrepreneurs with vast indoor family entertainment and sports recreation experience and diverse skills across many disciplines.
The company intends to complement, not compete with, traditional mountain resorts by expanding general interest and inclusive participation in snowsports.
Fairfax Peak will be built on top of a capped, inactive landfill that the county had been seeking to repurpose in an environmentally conscious manner.
Alpine-X plans to find similar locations to roll out other indoor snow slopes across North America.
The million-dollar question though is whether people in the USA will take up skiing and snowboarding indoors in sufficient numbers to make the projects economically viable.
Time will tell.
Image c/o Alpine-X
