Tag: skiing

Pak Il-chol of North Korea competes in the men’s 15km cross-country skiing event of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics at Alpensia Cross-Country Skiing Centre in PyeongChang, east of Seoul, on Feb. 16, 2018. He finished 107th among 116 contestants who completed the race. (Yonhap)

These photos from the North’s daily Rodong Sinmun on Dec. 20, 2016, show the country’s top leader Kim Jong-un watching the Masik Pass Ski Contest 2016. Teams from each province and the military competed in the contest in slalom, ski jump, giant slalom and downhill, according to the report.  (Yonhap)

This file photo dated Jan. 12, 2016 shows the landscape of the Jeongseon Alpine Center, a venue for the technical event of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, in Jeongseon in the northeastern province of Gangwon. The Jeongseon Alpine Centre, the venue for the International Ski Federation Alpine Skiing World Cup on Feb. 6-7, was declared ready for the competition in an opening ceremony on Jan. 22, 2016. (Yonhap)

Skiers enjoy their skiing at High 1 Ski Resort in Jeongseon, Gangwon Province, on Nov. 30, 2014. (Photo courtesy of High 1 Ski Resort) (Yonhap)

It is probably not a good business model for an open ski resort to have more employees than guests, but then again this is North Korea where such logic does not apply:

When a photographer took a trip to one of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s pet projects – built to bring in thousands of foreign tourists to the country – he discovered a sparkling clean ski resort… with barely another person or drop of snow in sight.

The communist enclave’s one and only ski destination, on top of Taehwa Peak, boasts a hotel with wood cabin style rooms, complimentary toiletries, and spa facilities and 110 kilometres (70 miles) of multi-level slopes.

However, photographer Aram Pan, from Singapore, who took the photos while on his fourth trip to North Korea from 16-20 October, did not find any other tourists to mingle with.

‘I saw one western tourist on a “private tour” at the Ski resort. I’m not sure who he was. I didn’t ask,’ Mr Pan told Daily Mail Australia.  [Daily Mail]