Fro-Zone

Bundle up! Every winter, thousands of visitors pull on their warmest layers and venture to Falcon Heights, Minnesota, to take part in a dazzling display of icicles.

Called Ice Castles, this wintry art exhibit features a massive castle filled with tunnels, caves, slides, and more. It is open from January to March, depending on the weather.

The structure is built with hundreds of thousands of icicles. First, small icicles are grown on outdoor racks. Once they reach a certain size, they’re placed by hand at the castle site. Then they are watered with blasts from sprinklers to make them expand. This process is repeated for days until the icicles grow into towers up to 40 feet tall. Finally, professional artists sculpt the ice into various designs.

Ice Castles was founded in 2011 by Utah ice artist Brent Christensen. He got the idea one winter after building an ice cave in his front yard for his kids. Today his company creates exhibits annually in several locations in the United States and Canada.

Christensen says an exciting part of the building process “is learning how differences in geography affect the ice.” For example, the amount of wind and sun a location gets can affect a castle’s size and shape, he explains.

Because Mother Nature can be unpredictable, Christensen and the other artists never know exactly how a formation will turn out. Still, visitors are guaranteed to walk away with incredibly cool selfies. 

—Brooke Ross