Pretty! Ice castles become art, tourist attractions

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Farming is tough during a New Hampshire winter — unless you’re growing icicles.

At the base of Loon Mountain in Lincoln, an ice castle not unlike the frosty palace in the Disney movie “Frozen” is rising from the ground, one icicle at a time. It’s one of three ice castles being built by the same company this winter— the others are in Breckenridge, Colo., and Midway, Utah.

Brent Christensen, who now lives in Hawaii, started his Ice Castles company a few years ago after spending several winters building elaborate slides and ice towers for his kids in his backyard in Utah. He initially sprayed water onto wooden frames, only to be left with a tangled mess of splintered wood in spring. The next year, he experimented with blocks of ice, building a small igloo to which he added chunks of snow and ice.

“During that process, I almost accidentally started thinking about icicles,” he said. “At first it was just for cosmetics. I thought, ‘This will look really cool.’ And then, with time, I stumbled on the idea of crisscrossing the icicles, and that’s when I found ... you can actually grow them in certain ways.”

Eventually, he approached ski areas about building larger structures that could serve as temporary art installations and tourist attractions, and the idea took off. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to build the castles, the largest of which spans about an acre, and visitors pay $8 to $10 to walk through them. About 8,000 people have visited the New Hampshire castle since it opened Dec. 27.

Matt Brown of Somerville, Mass., who toured the castle, said he recently saw “Frozen” and was curious to see how a real ice castle compared to the movie version.

“I obviously knew it wouldn’t be quite like that because that’s an animated thing, and it’s a lot easier to animate things than make them in real life, but I thought it would be an interesting way to spend 30 or 60 minutes,” he said. “It’s really neat.”

The castles will continue growing during the season, until they melt in March. Walls that stand 8 to 20 feet could reach 40 to 60 feet in the next month or so, and icicles placed along the tops of walls will become ceilings. But it takes a lot of work, said Cory Livingood, foreman of the New Hampshire castle’s crew.

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