Holiday gifts that bring smiles all year long

What’s small enough to tuck into a stocking or Christmas card, but big enough to last all year long? An annual pass to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park! You have two choices:

For just $25 per person, the Annual Tram Pass includes unlimited rides on the Iron Mountain Tramway for a whole year, plus a 10% discount at the Lookout Grille, the Snack Shack and General Store gift shop.

Annual Tram Passes make great gifts for people who enjoy coming up to enjoy a meal on the deck or next to the fire, or who like to take in the views from the tram and deck. It’s also perfect for parents – and grandparents – who bring kids to the Park, but don’t always ride alongside them.

The Annual Thrill Pass provides unlimited access to most of the park’s attractions for a full year for just $91 for adults and $87 for kids ages 3 – 12, along with a 10% discount at the Lookout Grille, Snack Shack and General Store gift shop. (Guests 12 and younger must be accompanied by an adult to the Park.)

One of the best features of the Annual Thrill Pass is that “unlimited” part. You can go up and spend the entire day playing as often as you’d like, or just go up for a couple of hours and ride the Giant Canyon Swing over and over and over again. It pays for itself in three visits! It can be hard to find the perfect Christmas gifts for kids especially when you don’t know what they’d like. Not only will these activities provide you with some special quality time as a family, but it can also give your children an experience that they may never forget. You can’t go wrong with either option; but, if you can’t decide, you can also purchase gift certificates for any amount. Call the office at 970-945-4228 or 800-530-1635, ext. 111, or stop by the Tram Base during regular hours to find out more.

Glenwood Caverns tops off food drive with donation to LIFT-UP

I love it when companies give back to their communities, and I’m especially proud when it’s a company I represent. Last week, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park did just that. At the beginning of the year, the management team at the Adventure Park decided to ramp up their support of the LIFT-UP community food pantry. They set a goal to collect 10,000 cans of food during the third annual Music on the Mountain concert series. It was a lofty goal, and to be honest, it made me a little nervous! But with the series expanded to include nine concerts, they had a “can-do” attitude and decided to aim high.

To bring in more food donations during the series, the Adventure Park teamed up with some local businesses, including Bighorn Toyota, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, KSPN radio, Glenwood TV, the Hotel Glenwood Springs, US Bank, Swire Coca-Cola and Mountain Beverage, to promote the concerts to an even broader audience. In addition to providing additional marketing opportunities, the sponsors brought prizes and giveaways to each of the concerts — always a big hit with the audience.

After the last concert on Sept. 24, the total number of cans donated was slightly more than 7,600. The community donated an average of nearly 850 cans per concert. That’s a truly impressive number when you think about it, but it wasn’t the 10,000 everyone was hoping for.

So last week, owner Steve Beckley and members of the management team presented LIFT-UP’s executive director Mike Powell with a check for $1,200 to purchase the remaining 2,400 cans. When they set a goal, you can bet they’re going to reach it!

LIFT-UP provides a helping hand to more and more people every year. They are serving an average of 2,600 people a month, and distributing more than 3,000 bags of groceries a month. Visit their website at https://www.liftup.org/ to find out how you can help.

Visiting Glenwood Springs in the Fall

Fall views from Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park
Fall views from Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park

Viewing Deck

Fall is my favorite season in Colorado, and it’s arrived in Glenwood Springs! The days are clear and warm, and then it’s sweater weather once the sun goes down.  This is a great time of year to visit, here’s why:

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is open daily, the lines are shorter – and rare on weekdays, and almost all of the attractions are still open. I love seeing the fall colors on the tram ride and from the deck at the Lookout Grille. With shorter lines, you can ride the alpine coaster over, and over, and over again.

The forecast: sunny or mostly sunny, with highs in the mid-to-upper 70s and lows in the 40s, for the next week! The weather is perfect for hiking and biking on the trails around town, or in the White River National Forest. The foliage is just starting to turn at higher elevations, so there’s plenty of time to plan your trip to catch the colors at their peak.

At night when the air is cool, sitting in the Glenwood Hot Springs is very relaxing. It’s open until 10 p.m., and the night rates apply after 9 p.m. You’ll find that throughout the town, and the Roaring Fork Valley, there are a lot of ways to enjoy the beautiful fall weather without the summer crowds. Come for a visit soon!

Oyster Adventure Race 2011 in Glenwood Springs Returns to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park

Earlier in the year the Webmeister reviewed the 2010 Oyster Racing series in Glenwood Springs, speculating about whether racers would return to Glenwood Caverns for the 2011 race.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for racers starting out in 45 degrees F. and the rain!) they did return, with over 50 teams participating.

 

Runners exiting the Giant Maze with their ticket in hand

Climbing 32 ft on the wet wall proved challenging

This year, racers ran from Glenwood Springs Two Rivers Park to the Glenwood Caverns Tram Station for a gondola ride to the top of Iron Mountain, to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.

Prior to getting on the gondola, race teams were handed a math problem to solve during their ride to the top.

Teams unable to solve the problem during the ride up were sent to the math-skills-impaired table, where they had to keep working on the problem until they solved it!

Riders delivering the correct answer were send to the Giant Maze leg.

A damp Giant Canyon Swing ride through the swirling mist

Oyster racers returning from their Giant Canyon Swing ride
headed to the Alpine Coaster ride down the mountain

While negotiating the Giant Maze, contestants searched at each corner tower for a ticket which would send them to the maze entrance station for further instructions.

Depending on the color ticket retrieved, racers were sent next to either the Giant Canyon Swing, the 32 foot Climbing Wall, or the Mechanical Bull Ride.

Racers unhappy with their ticket choice (fear of heights, anyone?) had to run the maze a second time in order to receive a different ticket.

Upon completion of the Giant Swing, the Climbing Wall, or the Bull ride, racers headed to the Alpine Coaster station and rode partway down Iron Mountain on the gravity-powered coaster, braking as little as possible for maximum speed.

At the bottom of the tracked coaster ride, the runners made their way through the oak brush to the dirt road called Transfer Trail and ran two miles back to Two Rivers Park.

For more info: Oyster Racing Series

photo credits: race organizer Team Players Productions Inc, Kaylee Maresh photographer

Adventure Park Philanthropic Business of the Year

Glenwood Springs Chamber Names Adventure Park Philanthropic Business of the Year

Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park was named Philanthropic Small Business of the Year at the Glenwood Springs Chamber Resort Association’s Annual Gala on April 21, 2011. Chris Ehlers was on hand to accept the award.

Giving back to the families in its community has been part of Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park’s philosophy since Steve and Jeanne Beckley opened the caves to the public in 1999, and 2010 was no exception. In fact, the park ramped up its philanthropic efforts in recognition of the number of area families affected by the downturn in the economy.

In July, the Adventure Park hosted the kick-off party for YouthZone’s 20th Annual Kiss-n-Squeal Fundraiser. Approximately 150 people showed up to enjoy free tram rides and “pig out” at the fajita dinner buffet, and many took the opportunity to try out the park’s attractions. The park, a founding member of the Glenwood Springs based YouthZone Foundation, donated the dinner and a percentage of the day’s proceeds for a total contribution of nearly $4,000.

The park also supported nearly 500 organizations and events during 2010 through the donation of passes for fundraising. These recipients ranged from school groups and sports teams to non-profit organizations and fundraising events for local individuals battling the costs of medical expenses. If you attended a charitable event in the valley, odds are that passes to the Adventure Park were on the silent auction table or awarded as prizes.

The park’s biggest impact on the community, however, was helping to stock the LIFT-UP food pantry. Through the Music on the Mountain series, which began in the fall of 2009 with two concerts and expanded to seven during 2010, the park collected 5,787 items for LIFT-UP, including canned food, jars of peanut butter and packages of pasta. Guests were able to enjoy a free tram ride and live music in exchange for the donation of at least one food item for the food pantry. Due to the popularity of the series, the Adventure Park is expanding the Music on the Mountain to include nine events in Glenwood Springs during 2011 and hopes to collect even more food for the community.

Disney Exec Shares Insights with Glenwood Caverns

Behind the Scenes: Disney Exec Shares Insights with Glenwood Caverns’ Management Team

Managers with a mission to make people smile recently got a chance to learn from a senior leader at the happiest place on earth!

Bret Pfost has learned a thing or two during his nearly 27 years of experience at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif. He traveled to Glenwood Springs, Colo., to share some of his operations experience, resort knowledge, leadership and sound safety business sense with the management team at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.

His visit to Glenwood Springs included an interactive work session for all of the Adventure Park’s year-round managers and supervisors that focused on the importance of creating a safety culture in the workplace. If you would like to ensure that you have complete control over your employees, then maybe you should think about having a HR Software that can help you control this and other aspects of your business.

As Senior Manager for Worldwide Safety, Training, and Compliance, Pfost builds a safety culture in teams across the Resort, including attractions, foods, merchandise, entertainment, custodial, guest services, parking and transportation, and security and emergency services.

Bret Pfost, senior manager at Disney Worldwide Safety, Training, and Compliance

“We’ve always made safety our top priority, but by developing a safety culture as Bret has done at Disney, guest and employee safety is considered in every decision that is made,” said Steve Beckley, who owns Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park with his wife Jeanne. “We learned a lot from Bret that we will be able to incorporate into our own policies and plans right away.” Respecting your workforce like this helps to create a mutual respect, which is a key part of being a manager. EQ works is a training company and they focus on teaching managers how to have emotional intelligence so that they can understand how to foster things like loyalty and respect, and that’s the best way to maintain and retain a happy workforce.

Interacting with a senior leader from Disney is just the latest example of how the Beckleys provide opportunities for their managers to learn from leaders in the industry. Each fall, the management team travels to another park to gain first-hand knowledge of each park’s attractions and customer service. They use these experiences to brainstorm ideas to improve and expand the customer’s experience at the Adventure Park. In the past few years, the team has traveled to Disney World, Universal Studios, Silver Dollar City and Royal Gorge.

Management team members also have the opportunity to attend educational seminars and industry conferences around the country. Beckley, along with managers Nancy Heard and Kelly Bates, first met Pfost at a ski area management conference in Lake George, New York. They all stayed in touch and came up with the idea for Pfost to visit the park and share his insights with the team. The participants’ response was overwhelmingly positive.

“Having Bret here from a company as prestigious as Disney was invaluable. The workshop gave me a lot of ideas to continue to improve the training model for the attractions department, as well as to enhance the parks’ safety culture,” said Jesse Boucias, attractions supervisor at the Adventure Park. “We are continuously striving to provide both a fun and safe experience for our guests. Who better to learn from than the best—Disney.”

Being an employer of choice in the Roaring Fork Valley is a priority for the Adventure. It’s a fun (and safe!) place to work and is now hiring for many seasonal positions. Applications are now being accepted for many seasonal positions, as well as for the annual employee scholarship.

Tram Manager Wade Beattie Plays Crash-Test-Dummy

Thrill seekers everywhere can (literally) jump for joy. There’s a new attraction at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in Glenwood Springs that offers some of the most excitement in town: the Bungee Jump. This feature offers a breathtaking vertical drop off of a 70-foot tower.

Before the bungee jump opens to the public, it was road-tested by some of the Caverns employees, and the first to go was Wade Beattie, tram operator/manager extraordinaire. Wade is an outdoorsy kind of guy who has partaken in his fair share of adventure, but he admitted to being a tad apprehensive before the big drop. “I was a bit nervous about it, because I had never bungee-jumped before,” he said.

Wade had his harness fitted at the bottom of the tall tower, then headed up the winding stairs to the top. “I noticed my heart rate going up when I was climbing up the tower, because I knew that pretty soon I was going to launch off of it,” said Wade. Employees at the top double-checked his equipment and adjusted ropes. Wade said that most people face backwards when they jump, but he opted to face forwards. “My thought was, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to face it.”

After a few more minutes of adjustments, the operators told him: Jump.

“I didn’t wait,” said Wade. “I’m the kind of person who just wants to go.”

So, he stood up as tall as he could, put his arms in the air, and stepped off the ledge. It was something like a swan-dive, although he didn’t jump outwards so he wouldn’t swing too much. It was more of a swan-fall.

“The second I went off that thing, it was awesome. There is a free fall-moment where it feels like there’s nothing holding you. It was peaceful in a way,” said Wade.

“Once I jumped,” he said, “there was no fear left, only exultation.”

Wade bounced a few times in the air, then landed softly on a large (7 foot tall) air-filled cushion, which he easily walked off of. The jump took about 55 seconds in total. Wade said that watching from the ground, the jump looks short, but when you are the one doing it, it’s plenty long.

So, after it was over, did he want to do it again?

“Absolutely!”

Wade’s advice to people is not to let their nerves get in the way. “A lot of people are going to be nervous at first, but then happy they did it. It’s smooth, safe, and a lot of fun.”

There’s a country song that goes, “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’,” and that’s exactly what any brave-heart out there looking for an adrenaline rush will be singing after a turn on the bungee jump. Be sure to check it out when the ride opens at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park next spring.