Sky High Adventure Park to Be Built in Ellicottville

Holiday Valley’s President, Dennis Eshbaugh announced Saturday that the resort will be constructing an Adventure Park in the Tannenbaum area at Holiday Valley. The park will feature an Aerial Adventure Park and a Mountain Coaster. The Aerial Park will open in June of 2011 and the Mountain Coaster will open later in the summer. More elements will be added to the park in the future.

Holiday Valley will be working with Outdoor Ventures Group of Southport, Connecticut to design and build the Aerial Park and Wiegand Sports of Utah and Germany for design and construction of the Mountain Coaster.

The Aerial Park is a series of platforms and “bridges” to be built in a 4 acre section of the woods adjacent to the Tannenbaum slope. The wooden platforms are built in the trees and the bridges connect the platforms. Bridges may be logs, hanging chunks of wood, loops of rope or other options and the challenge is to figure out how to get across to the next platform. A successful crossing is not a strength issue; it is more strategy and balance. There are different levels of difficulty and the more difficult the course, the higher up it is in the trees. Some courses have zip lines between areas. All participants wear a harness that has a special locking lanyard that safeguards them from falling if they slip or let go. Samples of the platforms and bridges have been installed in the ceilings of each of Holiday Valley’s base lodges and a video of a similar park is available at www.holidayvalley.com/skyhigh.