One morning in early December, I left my office in midtown Manhattan, took a 20-minute bus ride to the New Jersey wetlands and got a few ski runs in before noon. I hadn’t been skiing for 15 years. It turns out that all I needed was for the mountain to come to me.

Enter Big Snow, an indoor ski hill filled with 5,500 tons of “real snow,” which falls not from the clouds but from the ceiling of a warehouse where the temperature is always 28 degrees. As I set out across its terrain, I was flooded with the sense-memories of childhood: frozen eyelashes, scratchy snowsuit, the abandon of tucking the poles under my arms and flying down a mountain, my father just ahead of me. That lasted for 30 seconds, which is how long it took for me to hit the end of the run. With every sluggish chairlift ride back to the top, I was reminded that I was pacing back and forth in a cold steel box. When I was done, I was released not into a warm ski lodge but into an empty mall.