{"id":801849,"date":"2019-11-29T16:02:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T23:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=375286"},"modified":"2019-11-30T11:26:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T18:26:53","slug":"dillon-ice-castles-begin-to-take-shape-ahead-of-planned-december-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/dillon-ice-castles-begin-to-take-shape-ahead-of-planned-december-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Dillon ice castles begin to take shape ahead of planned December opening"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Workers continue to build the ice castles in Dillon on Friday, Nov. 29. Despite a few days of warmer weather, the Ice Castles are slated to open mid- to late December.<\/strong>
Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

DILLON \u2014 Dillon\u2019s premier winter attraction is beginning to take shape in Town Park, with dozens of workers chipping away daily to create the 2019-20 iteration of the ice castles.<\/p>\n

The castles are returning for a third straight winter in Dillon, one of six locations in North America for the Utah-based Ice Castles LLC. Construction is well underway with bases of ice already stretching well overhead. While there is still quite a bit of work to do, town representatives and construction crews are already anticipating another great season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so much fun to watch it take shape as temperatures are starting to cooperate,\u201d said Kerstin Anderson, Dillon\u2019s marketing and communications director. \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to have them back in town and driving close to 100,000 people into the town over the next few months. \u2026 We can\u2019t wait to get in there and see what the new features are this year and to welcome everyone to town.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are some new features planned for the attraction on top of past favorites \u2014 including an additional slide overlooking a fountain and perhaps even a steam-spewing volcano, if weather cooperates \u2014 putting everything together is no easy task.<\/p>\n

Site manager Anna Closser said a group of 30 employees have been on-site preparing since September and just turned on the water earlier this month. Before construction begins, the group prepares a detailed layout of the acre-sized plot. And once the weather gets cold enough, they\u2019ll start creating and harvesting icicles \u2014 up to 10,000 a day \u2014 to build the structures.<\/p>\n

During construction, workers hope for the best as far as the weather is concerned. On occasion, temperatures will rise, and workers will have to watch as their day\u2019s work melts away. And while they\u2019re only able to build in freezing temperatures, Colorado also brings some unique challenges to the equation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the weather is warm, it\u2019s not really helpful for us,\u201d said Closser, who\u2019s also helped to build castles in Wisconsin and New Zealand. \u201cAnd Colorado has a super strong sun, so that affects us, too. We\u2019ll plant our icicles, and they\u2019ll get really fragile because of the sun. It\u2019s something that our Dillon location specifically has to deal with. The 9,000 feet of elevation really throws things off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the endeavor is completed, the attraction will feature colorfully lit castles ranging from 30 to 55 feet tall to go along with a number of other components including arches, tunnels, crawl spaces and more. Once visitors enter, they\u2019ll be free to choose their own adventure and meander through the park as they please so that everyone gets a unique experience, whether they\u2019ve seen the attraction in previous years or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely nothing like this that you\u2019ll ever experience,\u201d Closser said. \u201cA structure that\u2019s almost completely made of ice is such a unique thing, and to slide down an ice-slide is something you don\u2019t get to do every day. So coming to the ice castles is definitely an experience that\u2019s great for the whole family or for friends to come enjoy. There\u2019s just a wonderful kind of beauty to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With tens of thousands expected to view the castles again this year, businesses in the town core should be expecting a bump in visitation, as well<\/a>. Anderson noted that during the first year of the ice castles, there was about a 26% increase in sales tax revenue from businesses in the town core, which was also maintained throughout the second season. The town expects similar gains this year along with considerable media and marketing value for the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of media coverage from the castles, which helps to take Dillon to the top of people\u2019s mind when they\u2019re looking at Colorado destinations,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cWe think that it\u2019s just a magical experience, and we love having people come to our town and associate that good feeling with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The castles are expected to open sometime in mid- to late December depending on weather, and presale tickets will be available until Dec. 2 at icecastles.com<\/a>. Until then, the individuals working to build the castles are already getting excited to share their creation with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really nice to see people interacting with it,\u201d Closser said. \u201cSometimes, whenever I\u2019m having a down day, I\u2019ll just walk into the castle and watch everybody\u2019s reactions to what we\u2019ve built. It\u2019s awesome to see the smiles on kids\u2019 faces and families enjoying it. It\u2019s kind of uplifting for us. We work so hard to build this. We just want to share it with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Workers continue to build the ice castles in Dillon on Friday, Nov. 29. Despite a few days of warmer weather, the Ice Castles are slated to open mid- to late December.Liz Copan \/ ecopan@summitdaily.com DILLON \u2014 Dillon\u2019s premier winter attraction is beginning to take shape in Town Park, with dozens of workers chipping away daily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 02:34:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801857,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801849\/revisions\/801857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}