2013 Ice Alaska - Multi-block begins

On Tuesday, March 5, I made my weekly trip to town to see if I could pick up some ammo.  Who would have ever thought I would be standing in line for 20 minutes to buy a restricted amount of ammo.  Definitely, King Obama is the greatest salesman guns and ammo manufacturers could ever have.  (now off my soap box).

After I got done at Sportsman's Warehouse, I stopped at the ice park to see how the multi-block sculptures are progressing.  It was another absolutely gorgeous day and the March sun just feels so great.  Here are some pictures.

Maneuvering one block up where it needs to be - totally awesome how tall the multi-block sculptures are.

 The large green cloths strung up between the two poles toward the right in the above picture serve 2 purposes.  One is so that the sculpture will have it's own designated spot.  But more importantly, it is also used to shade the sculptures from the sun since we are now up to 11 hours of sunlight.

The above one is titled "Extreme Ice" - check out those man made icicles - if these warm temps continue they may end up melting.

A multi-block sculpture by Oregon Coast Cullinary Institute - above is the executive chef and the rest of the team consists of two girls who work for him and one other chef.  Notice the red dots above - those are markings they will use to put a design on that.  I still love this guy's hat and wish I could chat with him to find out where he got it.

I believe the above sculpture is in recognition that the 2014 Winter Arctic Games will be held in Fairbanks.

Just one huge claw for what?  Wait and see.

Check out the mountain goat above.

 

Unstoppable is actually only about 3' tall - it is just a sign post for the actual sculpture which is a great big... nah, I'm not going to tell you.  You'll have to wait and see because on Tuesday when I was at the park, this was actually all that was at the site.

After walking by all of the multi-block sites, I walked on over to see what was by the red Chinese lanterns and found this fantastic cabin made of ice with a "log" fence around.  Even an ice guard dog.  It is about 10' x 12' and you could go inside and take a break on the ice furniture (if it wasn't so blasted cold).

A picture of the maze from up a view point partway up the slide.

Just more ice sitting around waiting to see if someone wants to make something out of them.  Sometimes they have ice carving classes or bored artists take them on.  I was sad to see that the ice block near the exit as we were leaving on Saturday morning was just broken into pieces and hadn't been turned into something cool.

The Ice Park is open until at least March 25th - I will be back to visit several more times in the next few weeks.  Hopefully JW and I can go late Saturday and check out the lighted sculptures since it's supposed to be warm this weekend.  But it looks like the temperatures may be going back down ... just when I thought spring might show up early.