Warm Weather Delays Construction of Maple Grove Ice Castles
In the heart of Maple Grove, a frozen flurry of construction is happening nonstop along Main Street.
Slowly but surely, a crew of about two dozen people is hard at work building up castles made entirely of ice.
However, that construction is not going quite as planned.
“It’s been a warm year,” said Brent Christensen, the founder of Ice Castles. “We’ve had a few cold days. Unfortunately, a lot of this is gonna melt before it gets cold again.”
Christensen says that an ideal forecast for building this attraction would be for cold, cold and more cold.
When temperatures climb into the 30s and above, the Ice Castles begin to melt.
“You know if we get over 30 we get a little drippy and melty,” he said. “I’d love days to be in the 20s, and nights to be in the teens or lower teens, 10 degrees or even lower, cause then we can really grow this thing fast.”
The weather he’s asking for isn’t in the forecast, which means that people looking forward to this winter wonderland are going to have to be patient.
“There’s no guarantee when we’re going to open,” Christensen admitted. “We’d like to think it would be mid-January, but we have to just wait and see what the weather does for us.”
The initial hope was to have the Ice Castles open by mid to late December, which would be an economic driver for Maple Grove.
But for now, that timeline is in the hands of Mother Nature.
“We get what we get and we don’t throw a fit, as my wife likes to say,” Christensen added.
