Manchester’s Trafford Centre doesn’t look as though it belongs in Britain. A shopping mall of gargantuan proportions, it’s flanked by freeways (well, the M60) and girdled with car parks the size of rugby pitches. Approaching it by car, you have to pinch yourself and wonder: “Did I just get teleported to the outskirts of Chicago?”

Just when you think it can’t get any weirder, you glimpse a great big blue and grey shed stuck into the side of the world at a 20-degree angle, like a crash-landed spaceship. It doesn’t get any more normal when you venture inside.

There are a few reassuring shops, a cafe or two, a cashpoint and then, at the far end of a rather fetching internal street, the pièce de résistance: a vast indoor slope covered in snow, full of people skiing and boarding.

Welcome to the Chill Factore – or as you and I might like to think of it, the nation’s biggest fridge. It’s been four years in the making and cost £31m to build. And in order to provide its customers with something approaching an authentic Alpine experience it’s covered in about 1,600 tons of man-made snow.

There are two drag lifts serving the main slope, a moving carpet next to the beginners’ area, and a mini-luge and tubing run. On dank Wednesday nights in winter the place is packed.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, many of the world’s mountain resorts rely heavily on man-made snow to supplement their natural cover, and the idea of moving the snow cannons indoors has been around for years.

The world is now peppered with indoor snow slopes – in Japan, China, South Korea, Malaysia and across the flatter bits of Europe. There’s even one in the middle of the desert of Dubai. I skied it once when the temperature outside was a modest 30C, in the company of an instructor who’d just been recruited from the Atlas mountains of Morocco. We sat on the chairlift (this was Dubai, remember, so of course there was an indoor chairlift) and agreed it was the last place in the world we ever thought we would ski.

In fact there are already four indoor snow slopes in Britain, the first of which opened in Tamworth, Staffordshire, back in 1994. The wonder of it really – given the Brits take an estimated 1.3m ski holidays a year – is that there aren’t more of them. You’d have thought London would have been ringed with them by now.

Let’s hope the Chill Factore gives the trend extra impetus. It deserves to. A lot of money has been spent on making it look – inside, at least – less like a shed and more like an Alpine resort. The internal walls of the shopping street, bars and restaurants are tricked out in cedar shingles, oak and stone. There’s a roaring fire in one of the restaurants, and even a terrace outside one of the bars so you can sit and watch the skiing.

Above all, there’s the slope, which at 180 metres (590ft) is the longest in the UK. That’s not much compared with the side of a proper mountain – Red 7, one of the world’s finest intermediate pistes, set in the Italian resort of Cervinia, runs for five miles and drops through 4,600ft. But it is just long enough to give you a buzz. Every time I skidded to a halt at the bottom, I was hungry for more.

Skiing is a simple pleasure: the best way I can think of to describe it is as a great big sense of “Wheeeeeeee!”. But it’s also a powerful one. By the time I emerged into the car park at the end of my session at the Chill Factore my mood was completely winter-proofed.

I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Two university ski clubs, from Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan, were having Wednesday night socials on the slopes when I was there, and for a couple of hours it was more like Tignes in France than the Trafford Centre.

Clearly a lot of them had already spent a season in the mountains, and they tore the place up with a seamless display of tricks, jumps, impromptu races and the occasional spectacular wipeout. Then they all piled into the bar for a little après, just like they would in the mountains.

“No it’s not the Alps,” said Maddie Williams, a 21-year-old student from Manchester Metropolitan. She should know – she spent three months in Méribel, France, a couple of years ago training to become a ski instructor and now teaches part-time at the centre. “But that’s the point really, isn’t it. It’s here, in Manchester, and I don’t have to get on a plane to get a taste of my favourite sport.”

Anyone with a ski holiday on the horizon – or indeed anyone who’s looking for a more challenging Saturday activity than mooching round the shops – would be mad not to join her.

Indoor slopes around Britain

Don’t want to look a fool the first time you ski a real mountain? Need to sharpen up existing skills? Then check out one of the UK’s real snow centres, where you can book lessons or go for a burn on your own. Other activities such as tobogganing and snow tubing are usually available too.

Snowdome, Tamworth, Staffordshire (08705 000 011, www.snowdome.co.uk ) The original indoor snow slope, featuring a 170-metre (560ft) doglegging slope. A one-hour group lesson for adults costs £28pp, including skis, boots and poles.

SNO!zone, Xscape, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire (0871 222 5670, www.snozoneuk.com ) The original SNO!zone, in the large Xscape mall in Milton Keynes, features both a main slope for regular skiers and a separate area for beginners. One-hour group lessons cost £27pp, including skis, boots, poles, gloves and helmets.

SNO!zone, Xscape, Castleford, West Yorkshire (0871 222 5671, www.snozoneuk.com ) The design of Castleford’s SNO!zone is similar to that of the Milton Keynes slope. It opened in 2003 and is loaded with 1,500 tons of snow. One-hour group lessons cost £27pp, including skis, boots, poles, gloves and helmets.

SNO!zone, Xscape, Braehead, Renfrew (0871 222 5672, www.snozoneuk.com ) Indoor snow in Scotland? It seems odd in a country with five outdoor resorts, but in 2006 Braehead, outside Glasgow, got its own snow shed. One-hour group lessons cost £27pp, including skis, boots, poles, gloves and helmets.

Call 0161 749 2222 or visit www.chillfactore.com for details. A 90-minute session for adults starts at £17pp, including ski and boot hire; four-person family tickets start at £48. Three 110-minute beginner lessons cost from £130. Be sure to book ahead for weekend and evening visits, when the centre is busy – your best chance of getting in at the moment is to aim for a midweek morning or early afternoon