Where to Ski And Snowboard - Norway plans world’s biggest snow centre

Norway plans world’s biggest snow centre

21st September 2015, by Abi Butcher

Lorensburg Winter Park will have three downhill runs and a cross-country track

Developers in Norway have been given the go-ahead to build the world’s biggest indoor ski centre, a six-storey complex just outside Oslo.

Construction will start later this year on the project that will contain 36,000 square metres of snow, a 505m long downhill slope, five different ski lifts, three different runs and an indoor cross-country ski track.

“We’re moving the snow to town – all year round,” said Kjetil Fladmark-Larsen, chief executive of Lorensburg Winter Park, in an interview with Norway’s TV2.

“This is more than a ski centre. We are going to build a hotel, apartments, a winter academy, and shops. It will be a destination.”

Lorensburg Winter Park will have a capacity for 5,000 skiers an hour on the downhill slopes, and 1,000 cross-country skiers at a time. It has been four years in the planning, and will usurp the world’s current largest indoor slope, Snowworld, near Aachen in The Netherlands, which has 35,000 square metres of snow.

The longest indoor run in the world is currently in the AlpinCenter in Bottrop, Germany, at 640m long — though plans have been announced for the creation of a record-smashing 1.2km indoor slope In Dubai by 2020.