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Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival, Friday-Sunday, March 17–19, various locations spread across Estes Park, schedule and ticket information at frozendeadguydays.com
A cross between the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Winter on the Rocks, the Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival is held annually in the elk-ridden resort town of Estes Park.
There, lurking in the haunted shadows in and around the Stanley Hotel, the three-day St. Patrick’s Day weekend event will include performances by some three dozen musical acts, as well as frozen T-shirt contests, polar plunges, frostbite fashion shows, skull bowling and a brain freeze contest. (Walt Disney, sadly, will not be attending this year.)
There will also be coffin races. Because frozen dead guys like nothing more than a good winter coffin race.
So who exactly is this frozen dead guy?
Well, it’s complicated. According to legend, Bredo Morstoel was a Norwegian fellow whose frozen corpse traveled here and there before reaching its final resting place — a steep hill above the jam-band enamored town of Nederland, Colorado — where his granddaughter has lovingly kept him on ice for the past 30 years. Now entering its third decade, the festival that bears his name continues to hold its world-renowned reputation as “Cryonics’ First Mardi Gras.”
As for the 2023 musical lineup, acts will range from String Cheese Incident keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth and Colorado Springs’ favorites Tejon Street Corner Thieves to the altogether appropriate Grateful Dead tribute band Shakedown Street. All of which would surely make Grandpa Bredo smile, if he only could.