Can you imagine people would build a castle with their bare hands, complete with caverns, archways, and tunnels, only to have it destroyed by nature after a few months? Some guys from Colorado do exactly that – only they don’t build with bricks but with a whooping 20,000,000 pounds of ice.
It all started when Brent Christensen, the creator of the ice castle, had wanted to create an ice rink in his backyard. You could say he went slightly overboard when the attempted ice rink came with a slide, an ice cave and even a castle-like tower. While the frosty creation melted away once springtime came around, another idea took root and Brent eventually patented his method to create stunning ice castles by just utilizing ice and water.
For the first ice fortress, Christensen had built a wooden scaffolding but then refined his concept and developed a construction method that relies on thousands of icicles instead. As soon as temperatures allow, Christensen creates and places up to 8,000 icicles daily and sprinkles the glittering structure with water. Temperature, wind and possible snowfall affect the way the pieces form, so it’s hard to tell what the ice castle will end up looking like. As the castle grows, more and more icicles are created and joined to the support structure with water. Articles report that it takes a total of about 3 million gallons of water to construct walls and towers.
Visitors are welcome to explore the glacial formations during the winter months in three locations in Colorado, Utah, and New Hampshire. The ice castles are open until late at night, when colored light bulbs add some extra sparkle by illuminating the ice in glowing hues of green and blue.
Photo #1 by Photo Dean, photo #2+6 by Bryan Rowland, photos #3-5 by Firennice.
Cordula Schaefer is a photography enthusiast who loves to venture out to explore new places and hardly ever leaves the house without a camera. A New Yorker at heart, she is especially fond of city trips and has a soft spot for beautiful beachscapes. She currently bases herself in Berlin and keeps the visual documents of her travels at Cordugram.
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