Leadership Students from PenHi lending a hand.

I’ve always believed that teens get a bad rap in communities. I’ve heard people say teens don’t have values anymore, they are too distracted by technology, too connected to devices, not aware… and I always say “Not in Penticton!”

Not only do we have almost fifty teen staff at the heart of our business – but with our recent LocoLanding Easter Egg Hunt we asked teens to help in all aspects of this charity event. And once again, I was impressed. Some highlights include:

1. 40 grade nine students from the Leadership Program at Penticton Secondary High School met at 7AM to place chocolate into each of the 10,000 easter eggs used at the event.
2. 35 teens volunteered their time to assist at the event – of those were 11 of our LocoLanding staff.
3. Our faithful Easter Bunny was a past LocoLanding staff member who really made the children’s faces light up!
4. At one point I needed additional hands and pulled in two teens that were participating with their younger sibling. They immediately rolled up their sleeves, without hesitation.

They all showed up on time, with a big smile on their face and truly made this event – they gave it ‘community’ spirit. They weren’t on their phones, they weren’t too busy, they weren’t distracted – they were present. And they should all be thanked and held up as a reflection of what this generation is truly like.

Teens will surprise you.  You have to believe in them AND empower them so they can truly rise to occasion. I challenge other businesses to find opportunity for teens – not only does it make us a more connected community but it gives them the ability to grow their skill set through hands on experience.

I would also like to thank the businesses that made this event possible: SuperStore, Investors Group and Chris Hawkins,  Home Hardware, ValleyFirst, IGA Marketplace, Morpheus Graphics, FitKidz Gymnastics, S.S.Sicamous, our event organizer Kelly Hall, Camelia Vokey, Miss Teen Okanagan World Amy Piquette, the volunteers from OSNS, and our fantastic entertainer Mat Duffus matduffus.com. 100% of the proceeds benefited OSNS Child Development Center.

Our new Sky Trek Ropes Course trainees with RCI's Amie Murphy.

One of the keys to business success, I believe, is choosing people to do business with that you truly believe in. People that you could see yourself being ‘friends’ with because of their outlook on life, their care and attention to their products, the importance they place on their customers. Without exception, we’ve had that experience with RCI, the manufacture of our new Sky Trek Ropes Course. And meeting another one of RCI’s team members today once again reinforced our decision.

Today was Day 1 of our three-day training, where high-energy Amie Murphy trained our new Ropes Course staff (and Dustin & I). We knew we’d learn in more detail the topics covered in our 120 page manual in order to safely operate this new amazing attraction. What we didn’t expect was the passion behind the brand. Amie, who’s been with the company from early on, loves her company and her job! And that’s because the company is so focused on quality and safety. Words like redundancy, procedure and responsibility were used over and over.

At RCI you won’t find ONE of anything – everything is doubled for redundancy – for the ultimate in safety. And we couldn’t be more confident in our decision to invest in the best – a company that puts it’s priority where it should be, instead of on the ‘stuff’ that so many companies get distracted by.

Amie said something today that aligns exactly with LocoLanding – their company is always learning and growing in order to be even better. And that’s exactly what has made LocoLanding the amazing place it is. We’re also always learning and growing, always reinvesting, to bring you the ultimate experience. Plus we have a TON of fun doing it!! (Just like our new partner, RCI).

(PS: We’ll be practicing Emergency Take Downs tomorrow after 5PM- will be quite the sight if you want to watch from outside the gates!)

Kurt inspecting every single component of our Ropes Course.

We finished building the Ropes Course last week – it was 6 days of intense and exhausting work by the crew of Solara Homes. These guys, who are used to heavy lifting and building, were crashing by 9PM! We believe it’s pretty indicative of how exhilarating it is to be SKY HIGH at LocoLanding!

Before the course can officially open we have to pass two final critical elements:
1. Course Inspection
2. Course Training

Kurt from Michigan flew up this past week to inspect every single bolt, washer and piece of the course (there were 4804 pieces & over 1613′ of rope). We were VERY happy to learn that even Kurt was impressed by our work. Kurt was a fantastic guy, and very interesting too! He’s been on sixty different planes in the last two months inspecting Ropes Courses all over the world. His last inspection was for the tallest course yet, at over 85′, which is located inside a mall. As everyone that visits Penticton, Kurt fell in love with our wine country and the beauty of the area.

The Course Training will start this week – 3 days of intensive training where our eight new teen staff will be mastering ETD’s in under two minutes. One month ago I had no idea what an ETD was (!) and by the end of this week we’ll all be skilled in it.  It’s Emergency Take Downs which means we need to be able to get someone off the course safely should they freeze or have an emergency. We are looking forward to meeting Amie, who will fly in from Michigan, to train us. So if you take a drive by this week and see a number of teens climbing around the Ropes Course you’ll know why! Don’t they have the BEST jobs ever?!

Can you guess how many feet of rope we'll be using?

Our Sky Trek Ropes Course is almost finished! We’re on Day 5 of installation and today when you walk by, you’ll see that we are adding each of the ROPE ELEMENTS.

Each element includes a different ropes configuration such as bridges, tight ropes, loops and balance beams. Each ropes obstacle will challenge your strength, balance and agility.  Seriously FUN!

We asked our manufacture how much rope we’ll be stringing up today… and their answer shocked us! Take a guess at how many feet we’ll be stringing!

Our Sky Trek Ropes Course arrived on a truck all the way from Michigan this week! It took 36 hours of travel time over 5 days, rolling into the LocoLanding parking lot at 6AM. Mike, the harley-driving-avid-photographer-really-great-guy-truck-driver, was a bit taken a back by our excitement when it arrived!

Our course is manufactured by Ropes Courses Inc. While our course is massive to us, they have done MUCH larger courses including most recently one on top of a cruise ship where their “walk-the-plank” actually has customers walking out over the ocean, 13+ stories above! Even though we are small(er) this company has been fantastic to work with. And when I asked today for the exact number of parts they shipped, it only took their amazing Marketing Guru Shawn less than 3 hours to wrangle the teams to figure out the answer!

They counted the number columns, overheads, platforms, elements, nuts, bolts and widgets.

They shipped 4,807 pieces!

And it’s our job to put them together, piece by piece, based on their very detailed plans. The result will be the first Ropes Course installation in BC and Penticton is EXCITED! These 4807 pieces will push people beyond their limits, challenge their greatest fears, bring teams together, and will create so many memories!

We’ve had the hope of bringing the Sky Trek Ropes Course to LocoLanding for over 7 years. It’s hard to believe that it is now on a very large truck, making it’s way here from Michigan.

The actual assembly of the course will take less than a week – but it took us much longer to plan and prepare. Much like everything in life, with a good plan, the right preparation and a great team around you – the final goal becomes very attainable. It took us about eight months to work with the city planners, geo-tech engineers and the course manufactures in order to get the final approval that “yes” we could build this on our land. Then it took about six weeks to prepare the ground – first with our team from Solara digging up the ground, then the geotech testing what our water and load levels were. The geotech had the final say as to how large our footings needed to be in order to hold all the steel above ground. I have to say, I’ve never been so interested in what the soil looked like before!

After land and soil approval, the excellent team at Solara led by Tyler and Graydon, went to work to get everything ready. They dug, filled, built, rebar’ed and poured concrete to end up with our final foundation. It’s like an iceberg, there is so much going on under the ground but only five small rectangles above ground!

Today, hopefully, the truck will arrive and the rest of the ‘iceberg’ will take shape. It’s an exciting time!

Geotech work, testing the soil

Pouring the Footings

If you’ve ever wanted to walk a tightrope high in the air or walk-the-plank over water – this year you’ll be able to! We are breaking ground on our newest attraction for 2013 – a Sky Trek Ropes Course – where you can conquer your fears and experience an adrenaline rush like no other! The course is ideal for all ages, as long as you’re 42″ or taller.

15 different challenging elements on the new 2013 LocoLanding Sky Trek Ropes Course.

Bringing this ropes course to LocoLanding has been our dream for more than 7 years ever since my dad first discovered it at our annual trade show in Orlando Florida. Each year it’s been getting better and better and each year we’ve been getting closer and closer to building it. Now 2013 is the year and we’re VERY excited!

We’ll keep you posted on how we’ll get this 30,000 lb structure delivered and built. We estimate it will take 4 weeks, cranes, many hands and a lot of patience! We have a fantastic crew helping us build the only ropes course structure like this in BC.

Get ready to overcome your fear of heights!