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Polar bears attracting crowds in Vail |
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Thursday, January 12, 2012 18:21 |
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Life-size snow carvings of polar bears are on display at the Gore Creek Promenade in Vail. Kristin Anderson, Vail Daily
By Caramie Schnell, Vail Daily
There's a good chance many 2012 Christmas cards will include one of the life-sized snow polar bears afoot in Vail Village this winter.
The queue of people waiting to take a photograph with one of the bears by the Covered Bridge was 30 to 40 people over the weekend.
Bill Hanlon, owner of Wild Bill's Emporium, is one of the exhibit's biggest fans.
“People love them, especially foreign visitors from Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela; we're having an awful lot of them this year,” he said. “It's a photo op they'd never have otherwise ... every night, people line up.”
Hanlon's store has been in the same location 43 years and he says “this is the attraction that draws more happy smiles than anything we've seen before."
There are eight life-sized polar bears and a cub spread around town, from the Covered Bridge to the Gore Creek Promenade, which local artist and architect Karl Krueger sculpted for the fifth annual Triumph Winterfest exhibit entitled “Arctic Wanderings.”
Read more about the bears and about the 5th annual Triumph Winterfest, which begins Friday at 5 p.m.
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