Harbin-Ice and Skiing--Part IV

The following night we go to the Ice Festival which is the highlight of the trip. This is the entrance.

There are slides to the left which I choose to try. But it was so cold; I had to pull myself down the chute.

An occasional snow sculpture was on display. Here the Russian influence can be seen.


Here is a short video that better captures the experience.

The final day we journey to a ski area about 30 miles away. On the way were go through a small town where these small 3 wheel cars are rampant.

Charlie Wood and I rent some equipment and our host buys us a lift ticket for 2 hours. Yes, just two hours, but this was the perfect amount of time. The temperature was -10F so after 2 hours, a warm up was going to be necessary anyway. Most of the equipment was old. The most of the skis were the straight sided and long. Charlie and I were getting outfitted separately or I would have advised him to rent the good stuff which they had in limited numbers.

The lift for the two slopes to the right is visible. In the center are poma lifts.

Here the trail map for the area. The two slopes to the right were serviced by a slow, two person lift. The area to the left was serviced by another lift, but it was not running probably because there was not enough business. There was only about 10 people total that skied on the slopes to the right as most of the skiers were novices.

The facility was new with a hotel attached, but the Chinese have a lot to learn about running a successful ski operation.

We left Harbin for Beijing where we spent two nights getting rested and massaged before the long trip home. Professor Zhang kindly treated us to dinner one night. The last night we had hamburgers at the Outback Steak House.