Sown in frost · 1 entry
Ice Hotels
Carved, frozen architecture. Kept deliberately to a single entry, because the genuine year-round supply is thinner than the category suggests.
Entry 01 of 01
Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs Resort
Chena Hot Springs, Alaska, United StatesAn ice building that survives an Alaskan summer, chilled by the resort's own geothermal power.
Sixty miles east of Fairbanks, at the end of a single road, Chena Hot Springs Resort keeps a structure that does not melt. The Aurora Ice Museum is built from ice and snow and held near twenty degrees Fahrenheit year-round by an absorption chiller running off the resort's own geothermal power.
That engineering is what makes it unusual. Most ice architecture is seasonal and rebuilt each winter; this one stands through an Alaskan summer. Inside are carved columns, a chandelier, ice sculpture by championship carvers, and a bar where drinks are served in glasses cut from ice.
Be clear about what it is. The museum is an ice building to visit, parkas provided, not a block of ice bedrooms — guests sleep in the resort's conventional lodging and use the hot springs, the greenhouses and, on clear winter nights, the aurora.
Who it suits
Anyone who wants carved ice without gambling on the season.
Worth knowing
Lodging is conventional and heated; the ice is a building you visit, not sleep in.
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