BETHEL – Volunteers stomping snow into place atop the Bethel snowwoman got the afternoon off Thursday after completing the sixth of 24 layers needed to reach a world record height of 120 feet.

Project engineer Jim Sysko said on site that he wanted to keep their cabled-together layer form of 4-foot-high wooden signs in place to firm up the snow following Wednesday’s snow, rain and ice mix that halted work. It’s the third time that a snowstorm has stopped the project.

“We have a target to finish by the end of the month, but Mother Nature will tell us when,” Sysko said. “We had a half-day delay today, because all of our contractors are busy and, just getting around was hard with the ice we got. We rely on contractors to move and truck snow and every time it snows, they have their own businesses to run.”

The project has run out of snow made earlier by six snow-making guns and a crew from Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry. Additional snow is being trucked in from nearby Bethel Regional Airport.

On Thursday afternoon, a Bancroft Contracting crane operator scooped up several large clam-shell bucket loads, then dumped it atop the frozen monolith for the seventh layer. Volunteers will work that into place today and start on the eighth layer.

Sysko said they’d originally wanted to make 25 layers to reach 100 feet, but the 20-foot-tall snow base on which the layers are stacked ended up being about 5 feet taller.

“As we go up, the lifts will get smaller and smaller as she gets narrower and takes less snow,” he added.

According to Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Robin Zinchuk, the snowwoman is a business development project as was 1999’s Angus, the community’s first foray into world-record stardom.

She recently said snowwoman was undertaken to grow an environment in which area businesses will prosper.

The 1999 project attracted worldwide attention and visitors. Snowwoman, who has yet to be named, is expected to attract thousands of people of all ages after it is completed. That date is projected for Feb. 29, if all goes well, Sysko said Thursday night.