The inaugural Madison Winter Festival has come and gone for the year, but participants and spectators are sharing their thoughts, photos, and videos of the frozen activities ringing the Capitol Square over the weekend.
"It's definitely not Mardi Gras down on the Square, but it is, nonetheless, utterly charming in a cold sort of way," writes Nina Camic in an introduction to a photo essay for the wintry weekend carnival. "Traffic is diverted, snow is covering every inch of concrete and road, kids and adults are trying out alternative ways of moving around."
A broad array of activities were to be found over the two-day festival. One attendee ventured onto the frozen surface of Lake Monona for the mini-revival of Kites on Ice in front of Monona Terrace, for example, before returning to land to watch artists at work carving ice sculptures with chain saws.
"The snowboarding was entertaining," says Madison filmmaker Jon Worrell, who stopped by the festival to shoot some video and see the "Mother Hen" snow sculpture created by his brothers C.K. Worrell and Nick Carvin. "And c'mon, I don't see people racing around the Capitol on skis everyday."
Worrell assembled the footage he shot over the weekend into a video montage of the Madison Winter Festival, featuring views of Nordic skiing sprints, snow sculptures, and the snowboard park and set to music from The Beach Boys, GZA, Reigny Day, and Madison's own The Crest.
There are several other videos from the weekend festival that are available online for viewing. Four feature scenes from a pair of Super Tour cross-country skiing races; a trio of the clips (parts one, two, and three) capture the men's sprints relay, while a fourth shows the podium ceremony for winners of the women's sprint relay, both on Saturday. Another attendee show four more brief clips from the festival (one, two, three, and four) that show varying scenes of skiing around the Square.
Finally, there's one video of the snowboarding rail jam at the festival. "We then wandered over to the snowboarding ramp, where a group of under-15's were trying their hands at the course," writes Emily Mills in another report from the festival. "Our favorite contender was a young blond girl in a bright pink, furry coat, who was pretty damn good and confident amidst the sea of boys who dominated her age group."
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