In yet another seemingly reality-defying ambition, Saudi Arabia has announced plans for a sprawling ski resort and luxurious mountain village village within its futuristic, half-trillion-dollar Neom development along the Red Sea coast. This newly announced project, dubbed Trojena, aims to out-defy all of the region’s other double-take-inducing development concepts by creating a luxury winter wonderland within the desert kingdom.
But perhaps the idea isn’t quite as far-fetched as it seems at first. There is somewhat of a mountainous area about 50 kilometers inland from Neom’s turquoise waters and white sand beaches. And according to Trojena promoters, temperatures atop the small range’s 2,600-meter peaks do often reach below freezing in winter.
Trojena’s developers, however, aim to make this a year-round hotspot for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities, in addition to an ultra-luxurious destination for escaping the region’s infamous scorching heat. The details on how they plan to accomplish this feat of environmental engineering remain few, although the need for a technological breakthrough or two hasn’t stopped any of Neom’s other ambitious conceptualizations either.
With the volumes of money flowing into the Neom mega-project from Saudi Arabia’s state investment vehicles, there is no doubt that if it is even remotely feasible, it will surely be willed and financed into existence by the kingdom’s audacious Crown Prince. The only question that will remain in the end is one that has plagued mankind and its environment-dependent ambitions since time immemorial – will the weather ultimately cooperate?
