Thousands of pounds of ice line Main Street in Waynesville. Even though Haywood County is chilly in January, this ice wasn’t called for in the weather report. Hundreds have come out for the ice stroll — one of the opening events during the annual weekend-long Visit Haywood Ice Fest. Bundled pedestrians traverse the sidewalk to admire the three-foot-tall dripping ice cone — hold the cream — in front of Kilwins, as well as the ice vase holding a bouquet of white roses at the entrance to Twigs & Leaves Gallery. A curious pup sniffs the Plott hound sculpture guarding the town’s municipal building. A few brave souls approach the icy Bigfoot that welcomes out-of-towners into Affairs of the Heart gift shop for a souvenir.
Eye-catching ice carvings around Waynesville captivate locals and visitors. Photography courtesy of Visit Haywood
All 20 frosty displays scattered across town are made by Ice Mill, an Asheville-based company that creates frozen sculptures. Master sculptor Patrick O’Brien started the business in 2020 after a successful career as a fruit and vegetable carver. He found the transition to ice to be a natural progression. The medium intrigued and challenged him. “In [the world of] carving, it’s kind of a small community of people that you wind up meeting,” O’Brien says. “One thing leads to another, and then you’re stuck in a freezer all day.”
Visit Haywood contacted O’Brien after members of the organization saw his work at ice festivals across the Southeast. They asked if he would help put on the first ice festival in Maggie Valley in 2023. O’Brien and his team filled the town’s festival grounds with whimsical Great Smoky Mountains-related creations, including an elk, a fire tower, and a skier who looked like he was zipping down the slopes at Cataloochee. “The event in 2023 went really well — almost too well,” Corrina Ruffieux, now the executive director of Visit Haywood, says with a laugh. The local tourism department underestimated the number of people who would come into town for the festival.
Last year, downtown Waynesville hosted an ice stroll at Visit Haywood Ice Fest. The city joins Canton and Maggie Valley in putting on the countywide event. Photography courtesy of Visit Haywood
When Ruffieux later joined the department, she had the idea to expand the event to include the entire county. The following year, the festival grew from one day in Maggie Valley to a full weekend of countywide, ice-inspired activities, including a rubber penguin race at a community pool, ice-skating in Canton, and a torch run down a slope at Cataloochee Ski Area.
“January is kind of a quiet month,” Ruffieux says. Cataloochee Ski Area is always busy, but the tourism department wanted to give folks who don’t ski an opportunity to experience the beauty of a Smoky Mountain winter.
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The following day, storm clouds hang over Haywood County, making the mountains as smoky as ever. But the rain and wind can’t deter locals from celebrating all that an Appalachian winter offers. A 26-foot-tall vinyl igloo has sprouted from the Maggie Valley festival grounds. It’s one of the few structures in the park that isn’t made of ice. There’s ice cornhole, ice slides, a train, shuffleboard, and more larger-than-life creations scattered around the park.
Artists from Asheville-based Ice Mill carve masterpieces for the ice festival. Photography courtesy of Visit Haywood
After racing down the ice slides and stopping by the igloo for hot cocoa, people walk to the stage, where two men maneuver chain saws and picks around stacked blocks of ice, each weighing 300 pounds. After four hours of meticulous carving, they reveal a massive marlin and phoenix to the crowd. “It’s just all about giving people the photos and the memories of something that they haven’t seen before,” O’Brien says.
While the festival is only in its third year, ice has always been a fitting mascot for an area that is defined by its extremes. Haywood and Jackson counties share the highest point along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Haywood is home to some of the cleanest water in the country. In 2023, the North Carolina Rural Water Association voted Maggie Valley’s water the best-tasting in the state.
A frozen fire tower adds plenty of drama to the ice festival displays. Photography courtesy of Visit Haywood
“We’re a headwaters county, which means that all of our water originates from within the county and then flows out,” Ruffieux says. Colorado has the only other headwaters county in the country.
The quality of the water doesn’t just make for beautiful ice displays: Mountain trout thrive in the clear streams, drawing fly-fishers from across the South. Residents don’t need to filter their drinking water, and local coffee shops and breweries use the water to produce quality beverages.
Don a winter coat and hat to enjoy the frosty amusements that the ice festival in Haywood County has to offer, including frigid slides. Photography courtesy of Visit Haywood
Ultimately, the festival is a celebration of how vital the county’s natural resources are to those who call the Smokies home. In that way, the festival tells the story of Appalachia. “We want people to come experience it,” Ruffieux says, “but we also encourage people to leave [the environment] the way it is.” After visitors have gone home and the Haywood County traffic subsides, the ice that inspired a community to gather will slowly melt, returning to its source.
Visit Haywood Ice Fest Weekend
January 30-February 2
Locations in Haywood County
(828) 944-0761
visithaywood.com/icefest
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