Brent Christensen’s Amazing Ice Castles

Brent Christensen is the founder of Ice Castles, an Utah-based company specializing in creating lofty ice castles by carefully orchestrating the freezing of water. Weighing up to 25 million pounds each, his castles feature soaring ice towers, shimmering archways, glowing tunnels, glossy walls, roomy caverns and frozen thrones, all made from ice.

Unlike most winter structures that use stacked ice blocks or a carving method, Brent Christensen employs a more organic approach. Castle-building starts in the fall. Brent Christensen and his crew of trained workers uses a system of sprinklers to spray water onto metal racks to produce thousands of icicles which are then harvested and stuck to scaffolds. The icicles are then drenched in water and, depending on the temperature and wind, they grow in various shapes and formations. Gradually, over the course of several weeks the ice accumulates and different structures emerge.

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Photo credit: AJ Mellor/icecastles.com

“We fuse the icicles in formations – vertically and horizontally – where we intend for the towers and walls to grow,” says Christensen. “We start on the ground and as each layer collects more ice and thickens we add layer upon layer until the structures grow upwards of 20-35 feet tall.”

“Since the process of adding new icicles involves the spraying of water, everything is melted and frozen together so that the structures are basically one solid piece of ice.”

Ice Castle began in 2008 when he built an elaborate skating rink and slide in the front yard of his home in Alpine, Utah, for the entertainment of his kids. He formed his company a year later and built his first large-scale Ice Castle at Midway’s Zermatt Resort. Since then he has created ice castles all over the United States and Canada. More than 750,000 people has visited his ice castles so far.

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