Trojena: Saudi’s dream, mirage or delusion?

It was recently announced that Saudi Arabia will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029 on mountains located in the north part of that country, near the $500 billion futuristic city project called Neom. For some strange reasons, the Olympic Council of Asia (OAC), last week, picked the Saudi candidacy that centers on Trojena, a yet-to-be-built mountain resort that’s planned to become a year-round (?) ski area by 2026. 

“The deserts & mountains of Saudi Arabia will soon be a playground for Winter sports!” the OCA said in a statement announcing its decision. Saudi sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal said the kingdom’s winter sports project “challenges perception” in a presentation of the plan to OCA members. 

He added: “Trojena is the future of mountain living, it’s as an area of about 60 square kilometers, at altitude ranging from 1,500 (4,921 ft) to 2,600 m (8530 feet)”. Immediately, top athletes like Kilian Jordan and French skier Johan Clarey have severely criticized the decision, while FIS official Michel Vion was just “somewhat surprised”. 

This choice is unsettling if not downright crazy, as the altitude seems awfully low for the kind of latitude Trojena is under. That future “ski resort” is at the same 28° latitude and as close to the equator, as exotic Afriski in Lesotho, but the latter boasts a base elevation of 2,917 m (9,570 ft) and a top one of 3,222 m (10,571 ft), and even with that altitude advantage it’s barely able to make snow when natural powder isn’t there. 

Trojena promotional video shows skiers gliding uphill, so who knows  which innovative surpises the Saudis might have up their sleeves? 

Further, since it appears now that it's fully acceptable to steal land from neighbors, like Putin has shown with Ukraine, the big Saudi tribal chief, Mohammed bin Salman a.k.a. MBS, certainly could do the same by pushing north, annexing Lebanon and with it, the mountain resort of the Cedars, better know as “Les Cèdres” ski resort, located between 2 066 and 2 600 m above sea level, and at a safer 34° latitude. 

If BSM wants an even more secure snow cover and can afford it (he probably does), he could even score better by invading the rest of the Middle East, all the way to Iran, and then settle his ski resort in Dizin, just north of Tehran as his ski resort of choice. 

With a latitude of 36°, a base at 2650 m (8694 ft) and a top reaching to 3600 m (11800 ft) he should be in perfect shape, especially when climate warming is no longer hypothetical!