Ice Castles

We journeyed to the ends of the earth last Friday night and discovered incredible ice castles in the arctic tundra. Actually, we only made it to Midway, but it was still magical. We met up with friends Stanton and Billie at a pizza place for dinner. We consumed several saucy and succulent slices. Then, after being adequately nourished, we headed to Midway.

(This is taken while standing underneath an ice arch.)

There's a man in Midway that creates beautiful ice castles solely from ice. Oddly enough, he's from Southern California. I think he does it as more of a hobby, but he uses the entrance fees to pay for family events like missions and weddings. We rather enjoyed our trek through his ice land and took many surreal photos.

The biggest ice tower/castle. It was about 20 feet high. He makes the crosses at the top by harvesting icicles from other parts of the tower and resetting them with a little water in new locations. I know because I watched him do it on another tower. Nobody's smart but me!

The fam.

Stanton and Billie.

These were pretty amazing to see: icicles that grow up! The man responsible for the whole event said he "couldn't take credit for those. Strange things happen when it gets really cold." They look like ice flowers with petals all the way up to the top.

Addie was really excited to see the ice castles, but her favorite part-and the part she spent the most time paying attention to- was the walking stick. (The entire ground was made up of ice chunks and was a bit slippery at times, so walking sticks were made available to everyone.) It was pretty amazing how Addie could float above the ground while holding onto the walking stick. I told you it was a magical place.

I liked these pebbly ice forms.

He's hard to see, but the creator is up on top of this ice tower. Addie was pretty impressed by him and kept asking me when his birthday is. He was really nice and talked to everyone while setting harvested icicles in various positions. He also said, "this is only about half of where we can be. If you come back in two weeks that tower right there (pointing to the biggest tower at about 20 feet high) will be about forty feet high." Suddenly, Jason was disappointed that we hadn't waited two more weeks before coming (mostly because he always wants more bang for his buck). So, if anyone reading this is interested in going, I guess you oughta wait two weeks and see it at peak time. It really is pretty amazing to see, even at the midway point (chuckle). Thanks, Stanton and Billie, for coming along on the adventure! We love spending time with you guys!