Massive snow blocks stomped into shape ahead of St. Paul Winter Carnival sculpting contest
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The St. Paul Winter Carnival is just days away and massive snow blocks are all ready for sculpting.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was there as the St. Paul Vulcans hauled, dumped and stomped the snow for hours, creating the fresh white canvases.
Our reporter, Andrea Lyon, even hopped up on top of one of the wooden 8-foot cube boxes to show what it takes to get the snow blocks in shape for the artists.
Scot Cocchiarella, president of the Imperial Order of Fire and Brimstone, guessed it takes 100,000 stomps on the snow to pack it down — give or take a few.
“There’s four to five people in this box. They fill these machines up with snow and we are stomping constantly. It’s a lot of work and a lot of volunteers.” Cocchiarella said while being interviewed on top of one of the blocks of already-packed snow.
A bulldozer loads snow into the top of an 8-foot box Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022, at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights. The snow will be packed down into one of 21 cubes prepared ahead of the Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition at the St. Paul Winter Carnival.[KSTP]
The St. Paul Vulcans say it takes volunteers around 45 minutes to properly pack and stomp one block. They prepare 21 total snow blocks for the Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition for both professional and amateur sculptors.
In the past, artists have hand-carved robots, Yoda and sea turtles out of the fresh white snow.
The Vulcans have also put in hundreds of hours creating what they say will be the biggest and best snow maze yet.
"It’s probably close to 100 feet long. Probably going to be close to 50 to 60 feet wide. They’ve been working on it for a week, so they probably have 400 hours into it. And they will have that much more this week to get it done.” Tom Froyum with the St. Paul Vulcans said.
All the fun begins Friday at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, when the St. Paul Winter Carnival kicks off. The snow park will be open beginning Jan. 28 and running through Feb. 6.
The Vulcan Snow Park is sponsored by City and County Credit Union.