Above: Amy was more than happy to talk me through

what high-speed sledding is all about. I, of course, was

more than happy to listen.

Castleford is home to one of the UK’s three

Xscape centres. The emphasis at Xscape is

on fun and at Castleford they have a cinema,

a bowling alley, a battleground where you can

hunt your mates down and shoot each other

with lasers, climbing walls and all sorts of other

things, including the Snozone, an indoor slope

where you can learn to ski on real snow.

The Snozone slopes are created in a huge,

hangar-like hall where they keep the overall

temperature down to between -2º and -3º

Celsius, although when they are making snow

they can drop the temperature as low as -6º.

Making snow? Yes, they make their own snow

– up to 1,700 tonnes of the white stuff covering

the 170-metre long slope. The slope is a

concrete slab covered with a layer of insulation

on top of which run lines of 20 mm pipes. The

pipes have a very cold anti-freeze solution

flowing through them and when water is run

over the pipes it freezes to make a layer of ice

– a bit like an ice rink on a slope. Water and air

are then sprayed at high pressure through snow

cannons, creating a fine mist of moisture, which

freezes in the air and falls onto the slope as

snow. The same sort of snow cannons are used

in ski resorts to create snow when there hasn’t

been enough natural snowfall.

Snozone were happy for us to show up after

they had officially closed one evening so that

our film crew wouldn’t be disturbing anyone

and we would have the slope to ourselves to try

out the sled.

Right: It might look like I

was getting far too comfy,

but I was just following

instructions and benefiting

from a bit of coaching!

236    world’s fastest sled