Zermatt Ice Castles and Kahtoola Bigfoot Snowshoe Festival

Gorgeous ice formations that we thought were just frozen fountains at first when we drove by on the way to my race in Midway. After the race we came to look at them in front of the Zermatt Resort and found out that they were ice castles made by a sculptor who worked on them 14 hours a day, moving around PVC pipe and harvesting icicles-we even saw him out there in his crampons. We were excited that we could go inside for only 2 dollars.

It was cool that under the ice castles were warm springs, like this one where fish could live all year, and Logan liked finding the fish.

This was the biggest one that you could go inside. They keep growing until the end of February and then last until May.

So pretty. We want to go back at night because they have lights on them.

We could play hide and seek around them.

Inside the big castle there was a narrow hallway, and a little window. It was quite slippery. Has anyone heard of that cool hotel in Canada or something that is made out of ice?

Logan loved being inside and when we went down the slippery stairs he wanted to go up again so bad that we braved the ice steps one more time.

Someday I'm going to aspire to doing this in my backyard. Wouldn't it be cool to say that your mom does ice castles for a living, like this guy does? It's awesome. By the way, the whole Zermott place was wonderful, just like Switzerland, with it's music, architecture, and bellhoppers in tights.

Earlier that morning at the Kahtoola Bigfoot Snowshoe Festival, standing next to a little Sasquatch Bigfoot.

Me, before the race. I was excited because it was so beautiful to run with sparkling snow all around and no roads. I was also just glad we got there in time. The thick fog all around Deer Creek made driving there a little scary. Good thing I got Pete up and made him drive me, but we didn't leave until 8:10 so I was a little worried. At least we had a GPS directing us so we knew right where to go. It kept telling us we would get there at 8:59, and the race started at 9:00 -Oh no!. It turned out OK and actually the race ended up not starting until 9:15 so I even had time to get a pre-race picture.

What the race course looked like. This lady was on her second loop -she was doing the 25k, I think. The races offered were: 5k, 10k, 25k, marathon and 50k -in snowshoes! These people were amazing, I was glad I was ony doing a 5k with the shape I was in. There were some true 'granolas' there.
Me, post-race with my frozen eyelashes and mustache.

My traction device called Yaktrax that Pete got me for my birthday last year. A lot of people ran in snowshoes, but I think these were much faster, as long as I didn't step in the middle of the trail and sink in. But to win in the long races you had to wear snowshoes the whole way. Kahtoola company was there selling these snowshoes you're supposed to be able to really run in -I might try them next year

I won overall first place female in the 5k, suprisingly enough. I guess my total of two workouts on the treadmill this winter payed off. This is me with the awesome race director, John Bozung, who is an amazing ultramarathoner. When he turned 52 he did 52 marathons in one year.

They had great cream of broccoli soup afterwards. This guy was waiting around for his friend to finish the 50k -over 30 miles! He came with his family and friend from St Louis- there were people from Virginia, and a couple other states as well.

Logan and Pete enjoyed seeing all the visitor center animals while I ran.

But the coolest thing was finding all the heater vents. Logan does that everyhwere he goes, nowadays. In the store he will point out if they are big square ones or big circle ones-those way up high in the ceiling. That's something I never noticed before - he is so going to be a good handyman.

Logan got ahold of half of my 180 energy drink which tasted like orange soda, and was in a pop can, so he loved it, of course. The race director warned us that Logan would be jumping off the walls, and he was right - the caffeine combined with M&Ms that Logan kept sneaking made for one hyper little boy. After he ran around in the visitors center awhile, people kept telling Pete that Logan needed to run the race next year.

Pete and Logan eventually came outside to get some of those wiggles out, and it worked. By the time we drove home after stopping at the Zermott, Logan fell fast alseep.

Pete liked the Sasquatch Bigfoot statue. I hope Pete never decides to let his hair grow out like that.