Well ladies and gentlemen, I’m feeling very blessed that the almighty algorithm delivered me this gem of information this morning.
Let me explain. I just learned that Germany, yes Germany, is home to a 150m (492 ft.) sand skiing hill and I can’t get enough of it.
The ski hill, named Monte Kaolino, is made from 35 million tons of quartz sand that was a biproduct of a nearby mine.
Cool, right? Yeah. Super cool.
The ski hill offers a 200m (656 ft.) long descent, and is open all summer long.
YouTube legend Tom Scott made a nice little video about the hill. My only complaint is that he doesn’t actually show anybody skiing or riding.
I’ve embedded Scott’s video below. Keep scrolling down if you want to see some sandboarding and sand skiing action.
Monte Kaolino utilizes what they call a ‘boat’ lift system that ferries up to 9 people at a time up the hill. The ride only takes 1 min and 30 seconds to reach the top, not too bad actually.
I thought it was really interesting how Kaolino has to move sand back up to the top of the hill after a certain period of time. It makes sense, but I still find it funny.
Check out the video below for some rad clips of sand skiing and sandboarding.
I’m adding Monte Kaolino to my bucket list of ski areas. It’s too cool for me to not make it there at some point, ya know?
Also, did anybody else noticed how steep that hill is? Looks like you could probably get some decent speed on that even though it’s sand.
Who else is with me and wants to be able to say that they skied on sand on a nearly 500′ hill made from mining byproduct in Germany?
