Sparkling it on a hill in the county of Teller stands a winter palace. Bulbeous scintillating ice cubes with blue and green lights greet visitors. Customers wander on a snow circuit path through tunnels, in caves and even slides – with ice. The warmly dressed employees and the ambient music welcome visitors to the ice castles in Criple Creek. It is closed for the season now, but it was a place to jump until it stops.
“It was absolutely wonderful,” said Donna Geary, who came from Colorado Springs with her husband on Friday evening in early February.
Ice Castles, based at UTAH, is a national attraction with locations in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah and Colorado. Two years after the closure in Dillon, Colorado, the ice castles moved to Cripple Creek in 2024, bringing a tourism wave in the small mining town south of Woodland Park.
Clay Davis oversees the construction and withdrawal of the palace. He saw the influx of visitors created by ice castles and knew that winter traffic was more than the city for which was prepared or used to.
“We tried to warn them last year. They didn’t believe us. They refused people three hours before closing because the waiting list was so long in certain restaurants. ”
Dan Boyce / CPR News
TRACIE BENNITT, director of CRIPPLE CREEK events, said this year, they made leaflets indicating family restaurants, which, she said, seems to have distributed traffic and lend themselves to a wider advantage.
Like many mountain cities in Colorado, the economy of the region depends on how visitors make a long trip to a winding highway.
According to Bennitt, Cripple Creek’s income is mainly generated by casinos that line the main street and their DERBY DERBY days event in summer.
“The winters are hard at Cripple Creek,” said Bennitt.
Historically, the longtime and popular ice festival was the way the city has maintained a flow of income throughout the winter. It developed this year in a nine -day event, still focused on competitive ice sculpture.
Bennitt said she had worked hard in recent years to make the Ice Fest an event that is worth the journey necessary to attend. Now, coupled with ice castles, the city welcomes more visitors from across the country.
Dan Boyce / CPR News
Workers also come from everywhere. For many, Cripple Creek is a seasonal stop on a temporary concert circuit.
“I know that many of this team this year goes to Alaska to work … Some of them work in Cañon City in a zip line there. So a lot of outdoor jobs, ”said Davis.
But that also means that employees filter and left the city. Most are not residents of the city of just over 1000 people. Ice castles rent local housing so that workers can live in winter.
“The business being slower in winter here, they are more than happy to let us have them for the winter, then to recover them right away when the season begins to take here for the summer,” said Davis.
While the tourism waves fired by the castles shook the shoulder season of Cripple Creek, the effects were felt throughout the region.
Only 4.2 miles on the highway is the small town of Victor. According to the city administrator, Bobby Tech, “it’s the longest 4.2 miles in the world”.
Asa Gartrell for KRCC News.
However, a large wooden troll erected just outside the city in 2023 helps to fill the ditch. It’s Rita the Rock Planting, Created by the recycling artist Thomas Dambo. The 20 -foot troll is on his knees, pushing a bunch of rocks in a hole with hands the size of the dinner tables.
She attracts people. Many people.
In 2024, Tech said that more than 60,000 people had hiked Little Grouse Mountain to visit Rita the Roche Planteur, mainly in the hottest months. But with the ice castles nearby, the troll still receives visitors throughout the winter.
“We came to see the ice castles, and Rita was a surprise,” said Kathy Beavers, who came from Longmont with her husband Morey. “This is the kind of thing we are looking for.”
Jessica Duran for KRCC News
With a population of less than 400 people, Victor felt the impact of these new tourist waves.
“We are counting on tourism rather than residents,” said Karen Morrison.
She and her husband sold handmade brooms on the 3rd street for 35 years. They run Victor Trading Co and Manufacturing Works, a shop closely filled with candles, trinkets and a wall displaying more than a hundred brooms. The Cat shop, Milo, jumps through the counters to greet customers. Morrison called a troll traffic a mixed bag.
“Many people come in instructions on how to find (Rita). We have them in the door and some of them shop. Some of them just want directions and they have come out.”
Asa Gartrell for KRCC News
While a trail connects the troll to the city, few tourists choose to hike. Even the mile by car of the sculpture is too far for many lovers of trolls.
“There are 25,000 people who travel to Rita, but not to Victor. So we really work with a diligence to try to finish this loop on our side,” said Tech.
Morrison said that bringing a constant tourism driver to town would give things up for Victor, but she admits that it is a complicated company.
“Well, we have hoped for 35 years.”
With the spring at the corner of the street, Morrison is looking forward to the traffic in the Derby Derby days, the rodeo of the county and visitors to the mining district. But it still has to take out the slow tourism net between the closure of the ice castles and the summer festivities.
With the kind permission of Mark Green
She thinks that Tech, who has worked for the city since September, could finally get an attraction all year round in Victor.
“I think he has ideas. And he is young and energetic, what we are no longer. ”
For technology, a prosperous future for Victor means collaborating with Cripple Creek to stimulate tourism in the two cities. For the moment, most of the traffic that the game and the winter festivities generate stays at Cripple Creek.
“But I think this is an opportunity for Victor to grow too,” he said.
He hopes to see the city become a family alternative to the casinos of Cripple Creek, offering charming restaurants, a rich mining history and a friendly neighborhood troll.