Alaskan ice hotel to heat up
 |
Steve Brice has been working for months carving ice that will be used to create the Aurora Ice Hotel.
Story Tools
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
|
Follow the news that matters to you. Create your own alert to be notified on topics you're interested in.
Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions.
|
|
CHENA HOT SPRINGS, Alaska (AP) -- A honeymoon on ice might seem a little frigid.
But Alaskan resort owner Bernie Karl figures his Aurora Ice Hotel, a 30-foot-high Gothic palace near Fairbanks, will be a hot tourist destination.
"I'm sure there will be some interesting comments from our guests," Karl said.
Destination resorts carved out of snow and ice already entertain guests in Scandinavia, Greenland and Canada.
An ice hotel in northern Sweden sleeps more than 100 guests, while a sprawling snow and ice complex in Quebec includes a main building with a ceiling 18 feet high.
By comparison, the ice hotel at Chena Hot Springs will cater to far fewer guests with only six bedrooms planned so far. Karl hopes to open soon after Thanksgiving.
The hotel will measure 110 feet by 40 feet and include seven rooms.
Its 8-foot-thick side walls of snow and ice will curve together into a Gothic arch-shaped ceiling 6 feet thick, and it will be reinforced with a skeleton of laminated wood arches, metal bands, chicken wire and refrigeration lines.
The framework for the Aurora Ice Hotel
|
|
Sleeping on ice, however, won't come cheap. The resort's Web site has set rates of $878 per room for a two-night stay and $1,067 for three nights.
The fee covers complementary survival gear, including Arctic-grade sleeping bags, and a backup heated suite in another portion of the resort for the less hardy guests.
Guests also get free access to the hot springs.
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
