Without natural snow
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A group of people at the 21st Mt. Taebaek Snow Festival take photos of a snow sculpture of Korean idol group Crayon Pop at the Taebaek Mountains Provincial Park, Gangwon Province, Friday. /Korea Times photos by Shim Hyun-chul
Taebaek festival brings forth heart of winter
By Yoon Sung-won
Abundant supply of snowfall and panoramic view of endless snowy mountains have long crowned Gangwon as the superb destination to savor winter in Korea.
As long as people expect that, the show must go on and so does the 21st Mt. Taebaek Snow Festival, with or without actual snow.
“I’m afraid we won’t have as many visitors as previous years as it snowed much less than before this winter,” a restaurant owner in Taebaek, Gangwon Province, said in the morning of Friday’s opening day. The festival will run through Sunday.
A child in a stroller takes a picture of a snow field with a smartphone.
Despite local residents’ concerns, the way into the Taebaek Mountains Provincial Park, the main venue for the festival, was bustling with visitors. In front of them was a white field full of sculptures, igloos and icy grounds for sleds, which could be built thanks to the successful combination of artificially-produced snow and the cold weather in the mountainous area that protected the snow from melting.
Visitors look at sculptures made of artificially-produced snow while the forest behind the festival venue is barely covered with snow due to limited snowfall this winter.
“It’s really interesting to see all the snow artwork despite the fact that the region hadn’t had actual snowfall in recent weeks,” Levi Basist, an English lecturer at Kangwon National University, said.
The festival started in 1994 and has since drawn hundreds of thousands visitors every year, becoming one of the most successful regional festivals in Korea.
A boy sprinkles snow on his sister in a snow field.
Beside the enormous sculptures shaped like cartoon characters and idol stars, kids couldn’t help yelling and jumping around with excitement. Seniors were lost in their childhood memories as they went down the ice slide on a plastic sack, just like they did several decades ago.
Won Eun-hee, 48, who visited the venue with her friends from Seoul, said, “The snow field here reminds me of the days when I was a girl who loved snow so much. It would have been much more romantic with actual snow falling.”