NEW CENTRAL OKANAGAN PARK OPENS ADRENALIN-PUMPING AERIAL ADVENTURES IN KELOWNA
Grand Opening: Celebrations will be held from July 27 to 29, 2012 with 15% off all Element adventures, prizes, and special offers for guests.
July 26, 2012, Kelowna, BC – Expansion of BC-based WildPlay Element Parks continues this summer with the opening of the latest adventure park in Kelowna, BC.
The new park features three adventure recreation ‘Elements’, with panoramic views of the Okanagan. The Monkido Aerial Adventure courses (Classic, Buddy and Kids); Primal Swing; and DragonFLY Zip Lines (which will open in August) allow guests to face fears, push self-perceived boundaries and experience life from a different perspective.
“WildPlay Element Parks is an excellent attraction for the city of Kelowna. The people who live and visit the Central Okanagan are outdoor adventure enthusiasts, often looking for a new challenge and thrill,” says Alexander Michl, president and franchise owner of WildPlay Kelowna. “We’re delivering on that demand in spades.”
Like WildPlay’s five other Parks – in Maple Ridge, Nanaimo, Victoria, and Whistler, BC, and one new location in the Yukon, YT – Elements in the Kelowna location are constructed to minimize their impact on the natural environment. The tree- and spar-mounted games of the Monkido Aerial Adventure courses are built using a special compression system that allows sap and tree nutrients to flow, and vegetation growth to continue. The placements of Elements are also designed to both work with the natural terrain and provide the best opportunity for guests to feel enveloped by nature.
“I’ve always been drawn to outdoor adventures and how getting into the natural environment makes all kinds of barriers in the mind and body disappear,” says Tom Benson, WildPlay Element Parks co-founder and chief experience officer. “I’ve seen people let go and realize some pretty amazing and positive changes in that kind of situation. At one point I noticed that people began spending more leisure time indoors, missing out on that innate opportunity to evolve. That’s where the idea for WildPlay Element Parks came about – as a way to bring people of a wide range of ages and abilities back to a place that was naturally designed to give them the freedom to meet their physical and mental needs, without sacrificing their down time.”
The ‘a-ha’ moment for Benson came after discovering the tree-to-tree parks in Europe and South America. The idea became a catalyst to design the company’s range of gentle to extreme aerial Elements that turn the concept of play into a mechanism for people to take on a challenge and overcome self-perceived limits, whatever they may be.
Since opening their first WildPlay Element Parks location in Nanaimo, BC in 2006, Benson has seen growing visitor and investor interest as a sign that people are equally drawn to the opportunity of exploring the outdoors in a way that is different, exciting and freeing. Today, WildPlay Element Parks employs more than 100 employees during peak season; 21 guest services agents, Element guides and supervising employees are already working at the new Kelowna Park.
WildPlay Element Parks, Kelowna, features:
Monkido Aerial Adventure: Derived from the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ action of problem solving and physical manoeuvring, the name stands for a combination of obstacles suspended from trees and wooden spars, two to 18 metres above ground. Course games include high ropes, zip lines, rope swings, scrambling walls, hanging nets, spinning logs, wobbly bridges, and more than 40 aerial surprises in four progressively challenging sections.
Primal Swing: On this high-velocity swing, guests (in single or tandem rides) don paragliding-style harnesses and are hoisted high above the ground, dangling over a deep valley abyss with distant views of the city of Kelowna and Okanagan Lake. In flash-fast release, guests plummet toward the ground at incredible speed before arcing back into the air up to 33.5 metres beyond the cliff’s edge. Guests catch their breath, and commanding views, in the wide-swooping final pendulum.
DragonFLY Zip Lines: A series of ten zip lines swiftly fly guests across rising and falling Okanagan hillside and grassland plateaus. The DragonFLY Zip Lines vary in length, stretching up to 250 metres, preferred by guests who enjoy fun and gentle guided experience (Opening in August 2012).
