Few winter vacation destinations can compare to Lincoln, New Hampshire. Located in the middle of the stunning White Mountains, you’re presented with unparalleled vistas and a unique snow covered landscape no matter where you look. The city gained recognition back in the early and mid-1800’s for its natural features and eventually, it became the lumber capital of New Hampshire. Currently, Lincoln is primarily a tourist driven city, with a population of over 1,600 people, making it the second largest city in the region. Franconia State Park reaches right into town, infusing beautiful surroundings into almost every activity that you’ll find here.
For outdoor enthusiasts and lovers of winter, the fun things to do in Lincoln seem endless. The area features top tier ski resorts with equipment rentals, instructional classes, and runs for every experience level. Also, you’ll find a great network of scenic trails and public parks that are great for snowshoeing, Nordic skiing, snowmobiling, dog sledding, or just playing in the powdery snow. When you're ready to rest or you're looking to warm up, Lincoln will deliver on multiple fronts. For food and drink, you’ll love the various restaurants, bars, wineries and breweries that call the area home. The best way to get the full Lincoln experience is to participate in one of the fun local events, like Ice Castles.
Ice Castles is a one-of-a-kind nationwide winter celebration. This organization travels the country and puts on large scale events that center around stunning handmade ice displays. The Lincoln event is highly anticipated locally and draws thousands of people from far and wide to witness these creations. This is a family-friendly event and all are welcome to attend. Everyone will love the magical winter landscape and the high level of craftsmanship that goes into the ice creations. Gather up the family, dress warm, and get ready for a winter experience unlike any other at Ice Castles. ResortsandLodges.com got the opportunity to speak to Ryan Davis, the CEO of Ice Castles, to talk about their great New Hampshire event.
RAL: Tell me a little bit about the event.
RD: Ice Castles is a magical collision between an ice cave, frozen waterfalls, and glaciers that are formed into towering organic archways, tunnels, slot canyons, stalactites and frozen thrones. By day, this frozen wonderland glimmers with glacial blues and frosty whites. After dark, the ice formations glow multicolored with the help of thousands of LED lights within the ice.
Each ice castle is built by hand and takes thousands of man-hours to create. The daily process consists of growing 5,000 to 12,000 icicles that are harvested by hand and individually sculpted into existing ice formations. Newly placed icicles are then drenched with water. The blend of icicle placement, temperatures, water volume, and wind result in an astonishing and ever-changing variety of ice formations.
We started Ice Castles back in 2010. During the warm winters in Utah last year, we opened for three days and had about 10,000 people visit. When we are open for a longer period of the winter season, that number is closer to 75,000 total guests during the event.
When it come to the demographic of our patrons, Ice Castles is quite unique. We see a variety of birthday parties with groups of kids from three years old on up. The “non-typical” groups are the birthday parties for seniors. The most memorable for me was a 93-year-old woman with all her friends. She said they were youngsters, all in their 80's!
RAL: What makes the event unique?
RD: It is all made of water, frozen water that is. We don't use any supporting structure inside of the ice. It is all built by hand and we use a patented process to make the ice. This consists of making between 10,000 and 20,000 icicles a day and harvesting them by hand and then fusing them to the ice. We then run water on the icicles and they grow and thicken and we repeat the process over and over.
RAL: What can an attendee expect to find for local lodging?
RD: There are lodging options near all the locations, from branded hotels to unique family owned bed and breakfasts. There are tons of mom and pop places to stay in New Hampshire. I can think of quite a few that have national flags on them. A few of the local options include: The Mountain Club at Loon, Rivergreen Resort and Woodwards Resort.
RAL: What does the event mean to the community?
RD: The whole town of Lincoln has seen a ton of business from the Ice Castles being there. The best we can tell is that between 15% and 30% of restaurant sales in the winter are from Ice Castles guests. This is in line with most of other events we hold across the country. It also means about 50 more jobs locally, about $5 to $10 million in revenue, and a whole lot of fun and publicity (like this!). We get about 300 million media impressions each winter so people know where the Ice Castles are. Most of our patrons will drive over 100 miles one way to visit an Ice Castle. Ultimately, there is a ton of economic benefit!
We also benefit the community by sponsoring some of the local functions in town like the theatre, as well as other charitable organizations like Charity Water, Mentors International, and more. We give to over 50 local schools, nonprofits, and other causes on a one-by-one basis. The requests for donations come in through our website and we support as many good causes as we can.
RAL: Why should people come to your event?
RD: There is not another event like this in the world, except maybe Japan or China. Definitely nothing like it in North or South America. We're a bucket list item for many people, and after seeing it, most put us on the yearly bucket list!
For more information about Ice Castles, please visit their website.
Photo Credit: Lon Lovett