Conquer the Cold: Copper Mountain's Cool Snow Maze

I came across another cool maze. I used the word cool for a reason. This newly made maze is located at the Copper Mountain Ski resort in Colorado. Specifically in the White River National Forest, about 2 hours drive west of Denver. Previously, I found 5 of the World's Largest Winter Mazes. While this one doesn't hold any records, its size and location are impressive. The Snice Snow & Ice Carvings team built the maze in nine days, using over 50,000 cubic feet of snow (that’s a lot of snow!). The final maze, with its 7-foot walls and carved artwork, is free to visitors of the ski resort. Located in East Village next to the Super Bee lift & Tubing Hill, you can find the maze rules and photos on the mazes webpage.

You can plan a trip to the resort here. If you are in Colorado and need some ice or snow carved into something interesting contact the Snice Snow & Ice Carvings team. Their Insta page is worth following to see all the wonderful work they do !

This is the third straight year a maze has been created at Copper Mountain and here is a look at last year’s version:

But snow mazes are just one type of maze; there are many others to explore. What kind of mazes do you prefer? Ones made of ice and snow? Corn? Hedges? Stones? There are so many to choose from ! If you prefer maze art, I have some examples from Colorado. I think you'll especially like the Cadet Chapel!

US Air Force Cadet Chapel Maze

Colorado Welcome Sign Maze

Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde Maze

Blue Mustang Sculpture Maze (also known as blucifer)

Red Rocks Amphitheatre Maze

While you are in Colorado you might want to walk a labyrinth where you are sure not never get lost:

10 Labyrinths to visit in Colorado

Making Mazes - 5 years later - a comparison - Part 4

When I decided to continue making comic book style mazes I knew I might come back to this series. Previously I did a 3 part series where I compare mazes I made a few years ago to mazes of the same subject today. The full introduction is written in Part 1, but a tldr is I used to make a maze each day and now I make one each week so I can spend more time on each maze. I also have learned new techniques over time that improve the mazes (What I've Learned Making Mazes). Here is that initial series:

Making Mazes - 5 years later - a comparison - Part 1

Making Mazes - 5 years later - a comparison - Part 2

Making Mazes - 5 years later - a comparison - Part 3

Let’s compare 5 more mazes and see how much better the newest mazes are 5 years later.

Part 4 - More Animal Mazes

Walrus Maze

The initial maze is from August of 2020 and currently sits in the Animal Maze section of the website. The new maze is from 2025 and is comic book style with free drawn pathways. I actually like to 2020 version which was made for kids. If I went back and changed it I would use free drawn walls instead of a standard maze style with right angles. The 2025 version is on a comic book cover and so uses that style.

Snake Maze

The initial maze was made in July of 2019 and the illustration was made for kids. I used bright colors and an angled but structured pathways that I hoped would give the snake a scale-like look.

2025 is comic book style and a much more interesting illustration !

Pig Maze

I made 3 versions. February 2019 vs. August 2020 vs. 2025. The first version was for the year of the Pig and it illustrates a glaring design mistake. The illustration is for kids, but the maze is for adults. Either the maze should have been easier or I should have taken more time making the pig. The 2020 maze is much better and shows the full body of the pig. It still works today. It could be improved with better hand drawn pathways. 2025 is a comic book version of a pig and much better than the 2019 version !

Lemur Maze

In October 2019 I made the original Lemur Maze which was for kids. It works, but my 2025 comic style maze has a lot more character !

Raccoon Maze

October 2019 vs 2025. The initial maze was made for kids. The second is much harder and gives our Trash Panda a bit more personality !

I should have more of these in the future - comparing the old to the new, but expect to see less mazes of subjects I have already done for awhile; that means lots of new mazes ! Hopefully, I can replace some old mazes that were poorly done with new and improved versions ! Happy Mazing !

If you want to see all case studies this post pulls them together:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to improve your Mazes

and this post if you like maze design:

What I've Learned Making Mazes

Maze Comic Book Cover #60 - Trash Panda

Issue #60 in my comic book cover series is called Trash Panda and features a new maze of a Raccoon. The background was made using starryai.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

Raccoon Maze Comic Book

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.

Maze of the Week 8 Redux - Abraham Lincoln Maze (MOTW#164)

Abraham Lincoln was a great President and I have made him into a maze 4 times ! One of those times became my maze of the week #8 that featured the statue of him that sits in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Today I attempt to improve upon that maze. It was a challenge, so let’s see what I did and see if I was successful. Here is the original post:

Maze of the Week #8 - Abraham Lincoln Maze

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Changed the Pathway Width. Increased the size of the pathways by 50% to make solving easier. This is more apparent when printed to solve.

2. Re-colored the Maze. I changed the background color and statue color. Lighter brown tone for the wall and a brighter grey for the marble.

3. Start/Goal changes. I deleted the arrows and changed them to be the written out words START and GOAL.

4. Reoriented the Maze. I moved the maze to align with the bottom of the page. This also distanced the quote on the wall behind him above his head.

5. Shadows Added. I spent a lot of time working on shadows for this statue. This took up the majority of my time and it was tedious work. I also added some shadows to the back wall.

6. Branding Changes. I reduced the branding tag by 75% and pushed it into the shadows of the corner.

Let’s see the before and after:

After the changes I see a maze similar but different. Did it improve ? I’m not sure. Either seems ok to me.

Some data: The new file is 2910MB from 499MB.

I will be adding the new version of the maze as an option going forward.

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

Happy maze-ing !