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Indoor skiing
Indoor skiing is done in a climate-controlled environment with artificially produced snow. This enables skiing and snowboarding to take place regardless of outdoor temperatures. Facilities for both alpine skiing and nordic skiing are available.
Since the early 20th century, there have been four major stages in the evolution of indoor snow centres.
Firstly, centres that had no refrigeration and used an artificial mixture of materials to create a surface substance something like snow, the first of these opened in Austria and Germany in the 1920s. The first recorded indoor “snow” slope was created at Berlin’s Automobilhalle in April 1927 gaining worldwide attention. According to contemporary reports a wooden slope was created about 720 feet long and sixty feet wide.
The "snow" substitute used was invented and later patented by a British diplomat, L. C. Ayscough, and involved a mixture of powdered mica, soda crystals and sawdust spread on a brush matting surface. The Berlin government were concerned about health risks from the mixture and commissioned the then head of its Municipal Health Bureau, Dr. Wilhelm von Drigalkski, to check it was safe for public use. He confirmed that it was and an order for 200 tons of the material to be delivered by train was placed.[citation needed]
The slope was initially popular and a company was founded to build more slopes in Dresden, Munich, and Frankfurt. It is not known if these were ever created.[citation needed]
A second indoor centre using "Ayscough snow", planned to be a more permanent facility, opened in Austria in November 1927. Known as Schneepalast (German: Snow Palace), it was opened in the Austrian capital Vienna in the abandoned Vienna Northwest Railway Station established by the Norwegian ski jumper Dagfinn Carlsen. The track in the 3,000-square-metre (32,000 sq ft) ski area was built on a wooden ramp. A ski jump made it possible to jump up to 20 metres (66 ft). Skiers had to walk up the artificial mountain, because there was no ski lift. However, sledges could be pulled up with an electrically-operated system. The artificial snow had been made by the English experimenter James Ayscough from soda.[clarification needed]
After the initial excitement enthusiasm for "Ayscough snow" rapidly waned however as users decided it was not particularly slippery and the initial whiteness rapidly discoloured. The Vienna facility closed in May 1928.
The second attempt at indoor snow centres came three decades later with the first centre that used real snow or crushed ice which was transported inside to a slope covered by a roof and open to urban skiers during cold months of the year in the city of Sayama, Japan. This centre opened in 1959 and continues to operate, although now with on-site snowmaking rather than bringing in snow by lorry.
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Indoor skiing
Indoor skiing is done in a climate-controlled environment with artificially produced snow. This enables skiing and snowboarding to take place regardless of outdoor temperatures. Facilities for both alpine skiing and nordic skiing are available.
Since the early 20th century, there have been four major stages in the evolution of indoor snow centres.
Firstly, centres that had no refrigeration and used an artificial mixture of materials to create a surface substance something like snow, the first of these opened in Austria and Germany in the 1920s. The first recorded indoor “snow” slope was created at Berlin’s Automobilhalle in April 1927 gaining worldwide attention. According to contemporary reports a wooden slope was created about 720 feet long and sixty feet wide.
The "snow" substitute used was invented and later patented by a British diplomat, L. C. Ayscough, and involved a mixture of powdered mica, soda crystals and sawdust spread on a brush matting surface. The Berlin government were concerned about health risks from the mixture and commissioned the then head of its Municipal Health Bureau, Dr. Wilhelm von Drigalkski, to check it was safe for public use. He confirmed that it was and an order for 200 tons of the material to be delivered by train was placed.[citation needed]
The slope was initially popular and a company was founded to build more slopes in Dresden, Munich, and Frankfurt. It is not known if these were ever created.[citation needed]
A second indoor centre using "Ayscough snow", planned to be a more permanent facility, opened in Austria in November 1927. Known as Schneepalast (German: Snow Palace), it was opened in the Austrian capital Vienna in the abandoned Vienna Northwest Railway Station established by the Norwegian ski jumper Dagfinn Carlsen. The track in the 3,000-square-metre (32,000 sq ft) ski area was built on a wooden ramp. A ski jump made it possible to jump up to 20 metres (66 ft). Skiers had to walk up the artificial mountain, because there was no ski lift. However, sledges could be pulled up with an electrically-operated system. The artificial snow had been made by the English experimenter James Ayscough from soda.[clarification needed]
After the initial excitement enthusiasm for "Ayscough snow" rapidly waned however as users decided it was not particularly slippery and the initial whiteness rapidly discoloured. The Vienna facility closed in May 1928.
The second attempt at indoor snow centres came three decades later with the first centre that used real snow or crushed ice which was transported inside to a slope covered by a roof and open to urban skiers during cold months of the year in the city of Sayama, Japan. This centre opened in 1959 and continues to operate, although now with on-site snowmaking rather than bringing in snow by lorry.