Tour of Utah: Ice Castles at Midway

Chel Owens

Have I ever mentioned how diverse the landscape of Utah is?

Photo by Sean Pierce on Unsplash

True, all of the state’s about as humid as a dry sponge on the sunny surface of Mercury.

Still, in the most populous areas, temperatures in the summertime reach over 100°F (37°C) while temperatures in the wintertime drop as low as 22°F (-5.5°C). This means we have landmarks like Arches while also bragging about the greatest snow on Earth.

(It also makes road construction a nightmare, something Utahns love to complain about but not appreciate the reasons for.)

On that side note, I wish to introduce a neat attraction that’s approaching its tenth season of operation: the Ice Castles at Midway, Utah.

Photo by Jacob Campbell on Unsplash

From an update last year, when The Homestead Resort hosted the castles:

“The Ice Castles are the work and brainchild of ice artist Christensen, who with CEO Ryan Davis and a crew of trained workers are building four large ice creations in Utah, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Canada.

“He started with a backyard castle in Alpine [Utah] followed by an ice castle in downtown Midway in 2009. Over the years, the Ice Castles have been in a variety of different Midway locations…”

–homesteadresort.com

Apparently, the Ice Castles at Midway is one of several locations run by the Ice Castles company. Their website also lists Wisconsin and Alberta, Canada.

How are the castles built? What’s inside them? What else is there to see and do, and how can people see them at night?

“Construction of the ice castles [begins] in November when workers [begin] the huge task of creating the towering castles of ice.

“More than 10,000 icicles will be grown and harvested to create the acre-sized attraction …over …three to four weeks. Each icicle is then hand-placed and sprayed with water.

“This process is repeated until the castles reach approximately 30 feet. It takes the ice artisans approximately 4,000 hours to create the attraction and embed each structure with color-changing LED lights.

“The acre-sized interactive experience will feature frozen tunnels, fountains, slides, and cascading towers of ice embedded with color-changing LED lights.”

–KUTV.com, 2 articles

Local celebrity Alex Boyé (and Lexi Walker) filmed one of his music videos in and around the castles, as did popular (also local) The Piano Guys. Lindsey Stirling, who has ties to Utah, filmed at the Colorado location.

The Ice Castles is another location I’ve always wanted to visit. Current prices say an adult ticket costs $14 and a child’s ticket (4-11) costs $10 -during weekdays.

Midway is straight up the canyon about an hour from our airport.

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★★SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I will be sharing my very first Q&A/book review/book promotion tomorrow!! You won’t want to miss it!★★

And here’s last week:

Friday, September 25: “Tour of Utah: Hole in the Rock.” Go visit, if you fancy a hike.

Also, announced the winner of the A Mused Poetry Contest. Congrats, Dumbestblogger!

Saturday, September 26: The A Mused Poetry Contest, funny commercial edition!

Monday, September 28: Shared a quote about by Jonathan Swift.

Tuesday, September 29: Responded to Deb’s prompt with “Carl’s Popularity Problem.” I blame Charlescot.

©2020 Chel Owens

32 thoughts on “Tour of Utah: Ice Castles at Midway”

  2. It sounds quite a feat, cultivating towering icicles to make castles in the wilderness. I reached for my coat and pulled on my gloves to read your post. But if you go you must video it, pop it on youtube and your first podcast would be born.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Hmmm, that’s new since last I was in Utah. It does seem worth a look. Let us know if you actually go, alone or with the kids (though how you’d pull THAT off, I can’t imagine)!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Ah…to be thinking of ice. Several local small towns nearby have ice fests. Where artist carve out of blocks of ice. Streets are closed so folks can wonder about safely. But nothing like that ice castle!

    However there is a temporary ice hotel, I think in Sweden? That gets carved out every year. I think I can live without spending the night in one of those 😉 Even covered by layers of animal fur blankets!

    It’s not that I’m a complete weather wimp. But I see no reason to drink anything out of a carved out frozen ‘glass’. Cheers, Jules

    Liked by 1 person

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