A collection of residence hall houses — Raptor Hall, Citadel, Night Hall and Incognito — were making their all-nighter statue near Walker Hall. Resident advisors gave students a survey with 10 possible options for a statue: they chose a seal balancing a beach ball, said Connor Eddy, an electrical engineering freshman from Citadel.

They started at 3 p.m.; more people were signed up to come at 11. A resident advisor gave some guidance early on, but for the most part the freshmen forged ahead on their own.

“We’re just looking at photos, basically, and basing it off what we can find on the internet,” he said.

A seal with a beach ball also figured into the circus tableau made by Delta Zeta and Sigma Phi Epsilon. Twenty sorority members and 30 fraternity members pitched in, working eight hours a week. Second-year chemical engineering student Jacqui Foreman designed the statues along with two other people.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Riley Powers, Lorrie Graff and Marney Kloote serve up chili at the Alumni House during Wednesday’s all-nighter.

One of its most eye-popping features — a lion jumping through a hoop — was the toughest to pull off, Foreman said.

“We had difficulty trying to get the round hoop to stay up, and then figuring out how to get the lion to leap without collapsing under its weight,” she said.

The elephant was another hurdle because of its sheer size — 8 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet.

Cold temperatures this year had forced them to call off some work sessions. They also had to go off-site to get snow during one snowless stretch. But overall, statue-building conditions were far better than last year, she said.

Beyond weather, she was also glad to have the full Winter Carnival experience.

“Last year was my first year here,” she said. “Because of COVID, Winter Carnival wasn’t a big thing. So to see it not only full-blown this year, but to be the one who kind of designed our statue, and to have my name on it, is meaningful to me.”

People who weren’t making statues also stayed active, whether through games of ring toss or belly-sliding across a table of snow.

The Copper Country Cycling Club set up a pump track for people to try out snow bikes. Anthony Walter, a second-year mechanical engineering-technology major, made several laps around the track.

“I think it was pretty fun … I started mountain biking a lot more when I got up here,” he said. Aside from the bike, his favorite part of Carnival is walking around to see the snow statues. He also planned to get pancakes at the Air Force ROTC’s fundraiser in Fisher Hall.

To get students through the all-nighter, food and drink was available across campus. The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers sold conchas, a Mexican sweet bread, and champurrado, a thick chocolate-based drink. As they told passers-by, the drink was made with extra cornmeal to retain more heat while people enjoyed the sights.

At the Alumni House, Riley Powers, Lorrie Graff and Marney Kloote ladled chili into bowls and travel coffee cups. Tech Dining Services had prepared 40 gallons of chili to feed the freezing revelers, Graff said.

Some students headed back towards the statues with their chili, while others stayed to eat it around a warming station.

“It’s the first year we’ve done it right here,” Graff said of the chili, which had previously been stationed further west. “It’s working out pretty well, I think.”

On Thursday, Phi Kappa Tau was announced as the statue winner for the fourth straight year.