Fire and Ice 2011 - Day One

A couple years ago we visited the Fire and Ice festival at Cave Lake near Ely, Nevada. It was so much fun that we decided that we'd not only go again, but also participate in the snow/ice sculpting contest. So I sent in a registration form earlier this week and searched the Internet for tips on how to do snow/ice sculpting.

I found some friends willing to give it a try, and we arrived after lunch today. We found the park ranger in charge.

He said, "I was wondering where you were."

We said, "Are we too late?"

"Oh, no, you're fine. You're just the last group to arrive."

Gulp. Clearly we were novices. We found that some of the groups had made quite a lot of progress. Some had used plywood to help form their creations. We had shovels and sleds. That was good enough, right?


This was our starting point--a pile of snow on the shady side of the lake. That was better than I expected. First, it was better because we got to start with a pile of snow, so that meant less shoveling. Second, hopefully the shady part of the lake had thicker, stronger ice. A couple of the snow sculptures on another part of the lake were so heavy that they had sunk a bit and the lake water had inundated their bases.

Yikes!
We started piling the snow higher. What were we making? I'll get to that by the end of the post.

Yes, waiting is good. After all, my parents tortured with me the Twelve Days of Christmas, and now I do the same to my kids!

The Fire and Ice Festival is much more than snow/ice sculptures. There are tours around the lake, ice fishing, ice bowling, ice golf, ice skating, sledding, concessions, and beautiful views.

Here we are, flattening the top of our snow pile. What's it going to be?

Filling in the edges. What? You can't tell yet? Ha, ha. It sure didn't look like much at this point.

Other teams at work. I believe there are 18 teams entered this year. Top prize is $1,000. We won't be winning top prize. But I think there are some nice consolation prizes!

We took a little break to walk around and see what some of the other teams were doing. This is a man (with an outie belly button) sitting in a hot tub.

This polar bear is enjoying all the snow and ice.

After seeing some of these great snow sculptures practically finished, we were feeling a little out of our league.

Fortunately there were a couple other groups in our same boat, still in the blob phase.

Well, it was time to get back to work. It was getting late in the day and the temperatures were plummeting, making the snow grainy and harder to work with.

Here's another part of our creation.

Can you tell what we're making? Last chance to guess, the answer is below.

Why, it's Snowbucks! Come get your coffee and donuts!

Finally we decided to call it a day. We'll be back tomorrow. We have to finish by 3 p.m. Then it's judging time, with the results at 6 p.m. followed by fireworks.

Who knows what we'll add to our Snowbucks tomorrow? It's a convenient theme, because we can add all sorts of things depending on how many people come out to help. The only problem with this theme is that it makes me really hungry for donuts. So hungry I might have to go find some!