We might have our Winter Carnival and the Lighted Man, but that pales (literally) to what Estes Park has going on with its annual Frozen Dead Guy Days. Celebrating the cryopreservation of the late Bredo Morstoel, the event was held in Nederland up until 2023, when it moved to Estes Park’s Stanley Hotel of “The Shining” fame. Held every March for more than 20 years, the festival includes everything from coffin races and a polar plunge to a frostbite fashion show, bands and bloodys brunch, and more. Last year it even included a fitting band: Dead-Phish Orchestra. The morbid event celebrates Grandpa Bredo, now over 120 years old, who for years resided frozen in a Tuff Shed above Nederland. As the story goes, Norway native Grandpa Bredo died from a heart condition in 1989. Instead of a burial he was packed in dry ice and shipped to California’s Trans Time cryonics facility, where he was placed in liquid nitrogen for four years. Then he was moved to Colorado in 1993 to stay on ice with his daughter Aud Morstoel and grandson Trygve Bauge. He was “grandfathered” into the city ordinances and allowed to stay cryonically frozen until his move to Estes Park two years ago, where he was submerged in liquid nitrogen in his new home – the world’s only museum dedicated to the science of cryonics. Info: www.frozendeadguydays.com
