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Where in the world can you ski on snow yet minutes later sizzle on sand? No, really, it is not a trick question though when one knows the answer the burning question surely is what trickery is involved. Just over a year ago, snow briefly dusted the mountainous hinterland of Dubai and neighbouring emirates. It was a rare flurry that made the news and perhaps broke would-be skiers hearts. But in Dubai, one quickly learns, almost anything is possible and there is virtually nothing that money, self-indulgence and technology cannot supply. Today its residents and visitors can fulfil whims and defy nature by donning skis and gloves for minus two when outside it might be a steamy forty-five or fifty.

There’s an almost mischievous perversity in the name ‘Ski Dubai’ but, frankly, it does what it says. Variously called a snow dome, a snow experience and a “complete indoor mountain resort”, this is the world’s largest indoor snow arena with the third longest runs. It also trumps all others in terms of temperature differentials. I dragged myself away from the yellow stuff (buckets, spades and a sparkling turquoise sea) – for this is part of the novelty and appeal – and made for the latest edifice of this mutating city to emerge from the desert.

Imagine a gleaming futuristic structure whose cross-section resembles a paper clip. The upper end – the mountainside if you like – stands about twenty-five storeys high. It bends around thirty degrees as it slopes into a vast shopping complex grandiosely called Mall of the Emirates. Some expat teenagers think this “looks pretty cool”. The architects have fused chalk to cheese but just about every city has its share of carbuncles so lets not get unduly distracted by aesthetics.

Inside, almost twenty-three thousand square metres (three football pitches to you and I) lie covered with the white stuff. It lies about a metre deep and each night a fresh seven centimetres (around thirty tonnes) of snow is added. Dotted with a few trees, mock rocks, snowy outcrops and sealed by an eggshell blue ‘sky’, it all looks vaguely alpine which is, of course, the intended effect, a kind of Davos-meets-Dubai.

The first thing you might notice is an audience of bag-laden shoppers gazing wondrously at this faux-Alps through tall plate-glass windows. They are watching a twin-track bobsled ride that coils down a small hill topped with an observation tower. Children, mostly, scamper about throwing a few snowballs before dashing into an eerily lit ice cavern to do things children like to do in eerily lit ice caverns. This area forms the heart of the so-called Snow Park, a separate area to which ski-less punters simply come to play.

Beyond it, a busy ski lift – one of three and sometimes with real queues – shuttles skiers up the main slope and into the heights. There is a fantastic unreality to the scene but this is entirely in keeping with Dubai itself. Locals especially seem to relish exchanging their flowing white dishdashas for ski jackets, long-coats, boots and all the other paraphernalia. Many cannot ski but Ski Dubai has thought of that too. The Snow School teaches the basics, either in groups or one-to-one, so you might be able to regale incredulous friends and colleagues with ‘I learned to ski in Dubai’ stories.

Thankfully, realism does not stretch to the extent suggested by the archly- named Avalanche Café perched midway up the ‘mountain’. There are no avalanches, or crevasses, or snow storms – at least not during my visit. The most dangerous thing up here is a flamboyant or incompetent skier hogging a relatively confined space. “You do,” explained one guide “have to be very patient with local people. We have safety rules here about what you can and can’t do….and sometimes they don’t much like being told what not to do, especially by a foreigner.”

Ski Dubai lives or dies by its slopes. There are five distinct runs from green to black, and the longest drops sixty metres in four hundred. You can clearly build up speed, and certainly exercise your skills and technique. There’s even a quarter pipe for snow boarders. .

Perhaps the only group to have expressed concern, if not outrage, at the idea of desert skiing are environmentalists. It has been labelled a folly, a gift to electricity companies and viewed by some as the latest emblem of what makes Dubai such an improbable, vulgar city where bold is best.

Ski Dubai, though, stands by its efficiency credentials. Energy costs are said to be less than ten per cent of operating costs, cooling is spread across twenty-four hours (rather than during peaks) and there are no external windows. The resort uses glycol and ammonia instead of other nasty gas refrigerants such as CFCs. When fresh snow replaces old snow, the latter is removed and used for the Mall’s air conditioning system – in effect this recycles the cooling energy initially used to make snow. The highly insulated structure, they say, adds not a single watt to the environment.

There is, too, the larger picture. This is a city that even fifty years ago was little more than an overgrown village. Today there are over a million residents who consume vast quantities of water and need air-conditioning to counter the intense heat that dominates much of the year. Perhaps Dubai itself is a seeping environmental wound bandaged in glossy clothes.

Will it increase the ever-burgeoning tourist trade to the Gulf? Westerners are unlikely to come just to ski because even merely enthusiastic skiers usually want longer runs, real sky and brilliant sunshine, requirements easily met in Europe and North America. In the Middle East, one can ski for real in Lebanon though this may not be to everyone’s taste. Ski Dubai seems to work best as a well executed though arguably foolish novelty that draws on Dubai’s staple of diehard shoppers, winter sun-seekers and snow-hungry expatriates.

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