this latest creation that seems to be getting "less round."
[photo by DH Tews © 2011 ]
Thanks you to our friend DH who sent us this "disappearing"
snowman to post for the blog!
Snowzilla first appeared on Powers’ lawn in 2005. Back then, he was a mere
16 feet tall and featured a corncob pipe, a carrot nose and two eyes made out of
beer bottles. As the construction gained popularity, Powers played to his fans and
increased the size of the snowman each year until it reached 25 feet in 2008.
This large Anchorage winter oddity also gives a nod to a symbol of Alaska civil
disobedience enacted in snow.
You can read more about about Snowzilla's great back story at his website and
also at Alaska Magazine.
The group has been building giant snowmen for a few years now,
but the 35' tall behemoth this year is their largest, which they named B.A.
Scoville said it was a team effort with lots of heavy lifting involved:
"20 of us working and we had trucks going back and forth with dump trailers
bringing snow to us. We had a guy pushing it up to another guy that's snow
blowing it out to the elevator. There were probably eight people up on the
snowman shoveling around it and packing it..."
B.A. has racing tires for buttons, oil barrel lids for eyes, a road cone for a nose
and a swimming pool for a top hat.
Dozens of people have stopped by the snowman for a picture or two and it has
become somewhat of a tourist spot. Scoville said he was surprised by the
number of visitors the snowman had received.
Scoville said about 50 people in all helped build the snowman this year.
He expressed his gratitude for their help and said he never could have done it alone.
You can view the video at the local ABC news video link here.
Copyright 2011 CNN. Full story at http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13948913
It was quantity over quality as 50 people at a time packed snow into buckets
and garbage cans along Main Street, “smooshed” it with mallets and flipped
them on top of each other with hopes the snow would hold together.
Snowmen had to be at least 4 feet tall. Decorations didn’t matter, according to rules.
The winner taking home a snowman trophy carved from native Michigan lumber.