When I heard that Breckenridge was hosting an International Snow Sculpture Competition I was sold! I knew we had to go. It sounded incredible.
Spoiler alert- It was! And the best part of this event is that is is completely free! There’s tons of drinks and food that you can buy but entrance is free!
Breckenridge is always a mad house in the winter because it is a ski town so take that usual craziness and times it by 100 for everyone going to see the snow sculptures. I was overly anxious and irritated by all of the traffic and parking situation. On the website it lists numerous free parking lots with shuttles running every few minutes that easily and conveniently bring you to the sculptures. We were driving around looking for parking and saw a ton of the snow sculpture shuttles so we knew we wouldn’t have an issue once we parked- we just had to find a parking spot.
By some miracle from above we pulled into a lot and found a parking spot right away! A car was pulling out as we pulled into that lane. It was miraculous because there were over 10 cars in front of us looking for spots. We got so lucky and I was so happy that I broke out in a happy dance. What a relief! And the best part was that we parked in the lot that was right next to the sculptures! We had a 2 minute walk! Now we did have to pay for parking but the meter was $1.50 for 2 hours. Done and done. I was so happy.
We had a 2 hour drive so first stop was the bathroom!
I stood on a line for about 10 minutes before I sent Mark to look for another bathroom. The line had not budged one inch in the 10 minutes I was standing there. Mark found a bathroom on the opposite side of the building without a single person on line! When I went to use the bathroom and came back, I saw that the line had still not budged. In hindsight I probably should have told people there was another bathroom but I didn’t. Oops.
The sculptures were truly amazing. Each sculpture was made by someone from a different country. There was China, Ecuador, Great Britain, Mexico Japan, France, Turkey, India, Mongolia, USA, and Germany.
We got there around 3:30pm so I rushed around to take pictures because the sun was quickly disappearing behind the mountains. Once I got all of my pictures in we circled the lot about 3 more times to see them all again. I couldn’t get enough of staring at them!
This viking was one of my favorites. He was so cool looking and he had so many intricate details. Do you see his bucket full of snowflakes?
Something I thought was really great was that everyone was so nice! It was super crowded and yet everyone was being so polite and letting people stand in front for pictures and taking pictures for each other. Everyone seemed to just form a line on their own to take pictures in front of the sculptures. We didn’t get too many great ones because we didn’t want to be in anyone’s way or take too long.
3rd Place winner was the Hippo Ballet Dancers by team Great Britain.
Here’s Mark with the 3rd place winner:
2nd place winner was team Germany with Walls with Holes.
1st place was incredible! A Cenote from team Mexico.
Here I am with the 1st place winner!
We had originally planned to go get food somewhere and then come back at night because once the sun goes down the sculptures are lit up! The pictures look so beautiful. Sadly, we had to change our plans because Mark had to work that night and we knew with traffic that it would take us a long time to get home. We definitely plan to go back next year to see them all lit up at night! It will be like a whole new experience!
We knew it would take us a long time to get home but we didn’t know just how long. We live 1.5 hours away from Breckenridge. It took us FOUR hours to get home! I was so miserable. There is normally a ton of traffic leaving Breckenridge, especially on a Sunday evening but it was made much worse by the three car accidents on the highway.
Despite the traffic it was a great day. The snow sculptures were amazing and even though I didn’t get anything, I loved that there was a ton of food and drinks to buy. There was hot chocolate everywhere!
Have you been to the Snow Sculpture Competition? Have any good tips or suggestions? Comment and follow!
And if you haven’t gone, I highly recommend you go next time around! It’s just so amazing how talented people are.