The huge silver tube shimmers in the desert sun over Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
It's still cool outside, about 75 degrees. But inside the tube, protected by layer upon layer of insulation, temperatures hover just below freezing during the day and it snows every night in preparation for the legions of skiers who come from around the world.
With a 12-hour layover on his way home to Wilmington, N.C., from Kabul, Afghanistan, Hank Heusinkveld wanted to experience desert skiing, "even if it is a bunny slope."
Sand skiing and boarding are possible in the Middle East, but this is the real thing, with man-made snow, ski lifts and even an authentic-looking ski lodge.
Heusinkveld, 49, and a former Lewiston resident, has skied in several parts of the world during stints with the U.S. Army and now in public affairs with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"I work with engineers," he said in a telephone interview from Kabul. "I was just thinking, how did these engineers come up with this idea? How did they pull it off?"
With money. Lots of money.
It takes 3,000 gallons of oil a day to maintain the icy oasis located in the Mall of the Emirates, one of the largest shopping complexes in the world, according to skidubai.com. The tube encloses 51/2 acres with five ski runs, one 400 meters or about 1,312 feet long, off a 280-foot indoor mountain. It also has an adjacent three-quarter-acre snow park with sled and toboggan runs, snowballthrowing gallery, a place to build snowmen, an ice cave and a body slide made of ice.
Every night, water is pumped through snow guns mounted in the ceilings. The tiny droplets crystallize into real snowflakes in nighttime temperature of about 20 degrees.
Coils similar to those on the back of a refrigerator run through the floor to keep the snow cold and huge overhead coolers chill the air.
The cold is amazingly cold, Heusinkveld said. It's a 50-degree temperature drop and an equally abrupt culture change, all in one step.
It was two days before Christmas, and holiday music was blasting - "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
"So they obviously cater to Westerners," Heusinkveld said of the predominantly Muslim country.
Built into the side of the tube was a cedar-front "lodge," and through the windows people could be seen sitting around a fireplace. He shrugged that off. "Been in one ski lodge, been to them all. I was there to ski.
"Hell, it was a desert. This is a great opportunity to ski in the darned desert."
For about $65 U.S. and the assurance he had basic skiing skills, he was given a two-hour pass, skis and boots. He turned down the pants, coat and goggles that come with the package, opting to do it "the Idaho way," in his own jeans, jacket and University of Idaho Vandal hat.
Skiers and boarders could leave the lifts at midlevel where the lodge was located and take about a 30-second bunny hill ride to the bottom, or go all the way to the top.
A lot of them were novices careening down the slope, kids on snowboards, families and singles from India and Europe and Great Britain, and a man taking photographs who said his wife was from Burley, Idaho.
"I went into a tuck at the very top, and I'm like, my eyes are starting to water. It was very cold in there. From the top it was a very good run."
The snow was similar to that found in the Eastern United States, he said, not the powder Western skiers are fond of. "It's not Schweitzer or Brundage, but it's fun. How many times do you get to ski the desert?"
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Lee may be contacted at slee@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.