Snow sculpture festival

February 8th, 2010 by robfelty
Clare, Rob, and Spencer in Breckenridge

Clare, Rob, and Spencer in Breckenridge

Snow sculpture with lots of snow removed

Snow sculpture with lots of snow removed

The last weekend in January we went to Breckenridge with our friends Greg and Mekayla to see the International Snow Sculpture Festival. Greg and Mekayla went up Thursday and went skiing on Friday; we went up Friday afternoon. We met them at the snow sculptures around 4 p.m., at which time we could still see the sculptors at work. They had some interesting tools. Some of the tools were very ordinary tools you would find at a hardware store like scrapers, but some of them were home made combinations of large curved wood with handles, with some sort of metal mesh attached, kind of like a rasp plane. It was quite fun to watch them work. We also went back on Saturday morning when they were finished. There was a pretty big difference in many of the sculptures, even though they had been working on them for 3 or 4 days. Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures from Saturday, because we left the camera in the car Friday night, and the cold drained the battery.

Saturday afternoon we took a nice hike with Greg, Mekayla, Anne (Mekayla’s mom), and her dog Lucy. Greg and Mekayla let us borrow these crampons that are basically like little spikes that slide over your boots, providing some great traction. We might have to get some of those. After a nice dinner of squash, corn, and bean stew, Anne volunteered to stay with Spencer to let us young folk go out on the town, which was a real treat for Clare and me. Thanks again Greg, Mekayla, and Anne for a great time!

View from I-70 looking south
View from I-70 looking south
View from I-70 looking southeast (near Frisco)
View from I-70 looking southeast (near Frisco)
Snow sculptor on scaffolding
Snow sculptor on scaffolding
Snow sculptures in progress
Snow sculptures in progress
The Föhn
The Föhn
String Theory (man playing violin)
String Theory (man playing violin)
Frog snow sculpture
Frog snow sculpture
Chinese head snow sculpture
Chinese head snow sculpture
Hunting snow sculpture
Hunting snow sculpture
Rob and Spencer at the snow sculpture festival
Rob and Spencer at the snow sculpture festival
Bowling snow sculpture
Bowling snow sculpture
Peace
Peace

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 12:34 pm and is filed under nature, outings, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  • February 9, 2010 at 3:12 am Gabe
    When shooting snow, it's best to set exposure compensation to something between +1 and +2.
  • February 9, 2010 at 3:42 am Robert Felty
    Thanks for the tip Gabe. Clare was shooting that day, and I think she was just using fully auto.
  • February 9, 2010 at 3:50 am Gabe
    What makes you think cold drained the battery? Usually keeping a battery cold keeps it charged, but using it while cold drains it faster.
  • February 9, 2010 at 3:59 am Robert Felty
    While hiking in yosemite five years ago, my camera battery was dead after the first night. Remarkably, it worked again later that day as it warmed up. That was a different camera, but I thought that was universal. In this case, the battery was at 0 for the rest of the trip, including when we got home, and it was fully charged when we left. I am normally very impressed by how long the canon batteries last.
  • February 9, 2010 at 4:43 am Gabe
    Camera manuals often include battery life at different temperatures (say, 500 frames at 25C and 400 frames at 0C) because batteries don't work as well when cold because the chemical reactions that generate power slow down. If I'm shooting outside in the winter I keep a spare battery or two in my pockets to keep them warm, and exchange them regularly. Electric cars often have heaters for the batteries for cold starts.

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One Response to “Snow sculpture festival”

  1. Lucy says:
    February 16, 2010 at 1:04 am

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Lucy

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