The Frozen Norwegian Tourist Who Predicted His Own Return
Eighty-two-year-old Norwegian tourist Bredo Morstoel experienced a sudden, startling revelation while driving through Colorado's Rocky Mountains decades ago. As he passed The Stanley Hotel, the iconic inspiration for Stephen King's 1977 horror classic The Shining, Morstoel turned to his grandson and declared: 'I'm going to come back here.' Forty-three years later, that premonition has remarkably come true. Morstoel did indeed return to The Stanley Hotel, and thirty-six years after his death, he remains there permanently.
A Cryonic Pioneer's Unusual Journey
Morstoel, a celebrated landscape architect from the Oslo suburb of Baerum, died from a heart attack in 1989. He became the first northern European to undergo cryonic preservation, a procedure that freezes a body with the hope that future scientific advances might one day restore life. His grandson, Trygve Bauge, who shared his fascination with cryonics, arranged for Morstoel's body to be shipped on dry ice to the United States, where Bauge had emigrated in 1980.
Initially stored at a California cryonics facility, Morstoel was later moved to a specially constructed site in Colorado built by his grandson. In a dramatic fulfillment of his own prophecy, Morstoel was transferred in August 2023 to The Stanley Hotel, taking up residence in their newly established cryonics museum.
The Birth of Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival
This scarcely believable tale gained renewed attention last weekend with the arrival of the annual 'Frozen Dead Guy' festival, which celebrates The Stanley Hotel's most unusual non-living resident, now over 125 years old. The festival originated in 2002 in the tiny Colorado town of Nederland, where Bauge lived and where his grandfather's body was kept. The local chamber of commerce, seeking to attract tourists during the quiet shoulder season, launched the event in March.
Amanda Macdonald, 54, one of the early organizers who later purchased the festival rights in 2012, witnessed its explosive growth. 'In the first few years there were a couple of hundred people, and the idea was to have the events at all the bars,' Macdonald told the Daily Mail. 'We had a Grandpa Bredo look-a-like contest, frozen t-shirt contests, eating competitions, music, beers, a hearse parade, and coffin races where teams in fancy dress carried homemade "coffins" over obstacle courses. It got huge—some years drawing 20,000 people across the weekend, which for a town of 1,800 is extraordinary.'
Relocation and Preservation Challenges
By 2023, Macdonald realized the festival had outgrown Nederland and sold the concept to nearby Estes Park, home to The Stanley Hotel. This move sparked the decision to relocate Morstoel's body. 'They realized that Frozen Dead Guy Days without the actual frozen dead guy isn't the same,' explained Bauge, now 67. 'So they approached me about moving my grandfather to Estes Park. I realized I needed to find someone else to take over his long-term care.'
Bauge's own situation was decidedly unusual. After moving to the United States in 1980 with his mother and grandfather, he settled in Boulder, Colorado, where he became a local celebrity for introducing Norwegian ice bathing and founding groups like the Boulder Polar Bear Club. When Morstoel died in November 1989 during a nap in Oslo, Bauge immediately arranged for cryonic preservation, insisting his grandfather had expressed interest in the procedure despite never signing formal documentation.
Engineering a Cryonic Facility
In 1991, Bauge purchased land in Nederland and began constructing both his dream home and a cryonics facility for his grandfather. 'If you visit existing cryonic facilities, you'll see they use essentially a thermos: two layers of metal with a vacuum between them to keep contents hot or cold,' Bauge explained. 'Liquid nitrogen is ideal because it doesn't evaporate immediately, giving more time to fix problems. Dry ice isn't really cold enough, but it was our best alternative initially.'
While building the specialized shed that would house Morstoel, Bauge kept his grandfather on dry ice. The legal situation became murky when alarmed locals passed a law banning corpses in town, though Morstoel was 'grandfathered' in and allowed to remain. However, in November 1994, immigration officials deported Bauge and his mother from the United States, preventing Bauge from returning to this day.
The Caretakers and Final Transfer
Following Bauge's deportation, a series of caretakers maintained Morstoel's body with regular dry ice deliveries. The first 'Ice Man,' Bo Shaffer, spent twenty years carting dry ice from Denver to Nederland before resigning in 2012 due to rising costs and conflicts with Bauge. Eventually, 'Brad the Ice Man,' Brad Wickham, oversaw Morstoel's transfer to Estes Park.
This is when James Arrowood, CEO of Phoenix-based cryonics company Alcor, entered the picture. Initially hesitant about what he perceived as a carnival-like exploitation, Arrowood eventually agreed to assist after realizing the scientific value of examining a body preserved on dry ice for thirty years. 'Scientists wanted to know what the body would look like after 30 years on dry ice, because we would never do it that way,' Arrowood said. 'It's really valuable information. He hadn't been perfused with protective agents because they didn't have access to chemicals in Norway at the time of his death.'
A Permanent Home at The Stanley
Arrowood's specialized team traveled to Nederland, opened the tomb, and transferred Morstoel—draped in a Norwegian flag—to Alcor's van on dry ice. He was driven forty miles to Estes Park, where he was submerged head-first in liquid nitrogen. Morstoel now resides encased in a solid metal tube at The Stanley Hotel's cryonics museum, the centerpiece of an annual celebration featuring coffin races, drone shows, and bar crawls.
The Future of Cryonic Resurrection
Will Morstoel ever rise from the dead? 'I'm the president and CEO of a cryonics firm, and I tell people we don't know if it's going to work,' admitted Arrowood. 'We know creatures in the animal and plant kingdom can freeze and come back to life. Nature has the answer—we're just trying to find it and tailor it for human use.'
Bauge remains optimistic, citing his family's belief in the technology. 'Many issues will have to be solved before we get that far,' he acknowledged. 'But if you want something and have a strong will to do it, you get that resonance between your desire, your will, and your action. Whatever happens, I find a way to look further into the future and outgrow the obstacles that are here and now.'
