(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.

(gentle music) - Welcome back to "Working Capital."

Today we hit the trails and learn that some dreams don't fit in a box or just a building.

Pioneering spirits, strong determination, good partners, and the great outdoors, can add up to some rock solid adventures.

There are dirty days ahead.

Follow along as we learn how Kansas rocks.

(upbeat music) Flat as Kansas.

The Sunflower State has a bad reputation when it comes to topography, and that four by fours in Kansas are just for mudding.

One rocky experience blows that myth out of the mud puddle.

Kansas Rock's Recreation Park will help you wheeling through miles of fun in no time flat.

Here to teach us a little more about the vision of Kansas Rocks, are Robin and David Killion, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you for having us, Jay.

- So before we get to the actual park, where did this passion for the outdoors and really wheeling and that kind of adventuring life come from?

- Well, I've been playing in the dirt since I was 10.

My father was a motorcycle enthusiast and he bought a dirt bike and I learned to ride it up and down the alley.

And then I progressed into motocross and trials bikes, and then eventually at the age of 18, had my first four wheel drive pickup.

And that's what started it.

- Kind of opened the whole world for you at that point?

- It did, absolutely.

- So how did you get involved with wheeling?

- So, I too have been playing in the dirt since I was a young girl.

I come from the motocross world.

So then when I met David, he said, let's open an off-road park.

So here we are.

- So passions combined, good partnership.

Okay, so tell us about how did this park come to be?

Where did that vision come from?

- Well, it really wasn't so much as a vision as a means to an end.

I started the first organized off-road club around the Kansas City area.

Kansas City Four Wheel Drive Association.

And once we got it put together, and got people interested in coming to join the club, we thought, okay, now that's great, where do we go wheeling?

And so we found some areas around, and they were all three or four hours away.

And that got me thinking we should find something closer.

And so that was the impetus to get everything started toward finding area for an off-road park.

- So, with Kansas being so flat, how hard or how was it finding this piece of land?

What did you have to go through to find this perfect piece for what goes on out there?

- Well, about a year's search, we drew circles around Kansas City, 30, 60, 90 mile radius'.

And we looked at topography maps and tried to find areas that were close enough that you could get to quickly.

And we started looking, we looked at 90 pieces of property.

- [Jay] Wow.

- And we found a piece that was okay and we got it, and we had to go through a conditional use permit process and that didn't end well, so we ended up selling it.

And then we looked at another 60 pieces of property.

And we actually looked at a piece across the fence from where we are now and thought that would be great.

And we had a contract on it, and the neighbor bought it out from under us.

And so our realtor said, you know I've got a pretty nice piece of property across the fence line, let's talk to him.

He didn't wanna sell, but we did settle on a lease, a 15 year lease.

And so we got started with that.

And in the 20 years now, we continue to talk with the guy on the other side of the fence line to see if he wanted to do anything with that.

And eventually he asked us, if we wanted to buy that property.

So the perfect piece of property we wanted, we now have, but it took us 16 years to get there.

- And that other piece of property, had it for about six years now?

- Yeah, we've had it since 2016.

- Okay, okay.

So with this, you're organized as a 501(c)(3), so you found your piece of property, what's the next step?

What are the biggest challenges now?

Is it finding a board to help out?

Is it just getting people out there to cut trails?

What's your next step after you found this?

- Well, there was a lot of steps in between that.

Number one, the reason we developed as a 501(c)(3), so that we would be eligible for grants.

We did find a grant that was available through Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, called the RTP Grant, Recreational Trails Program.

I got in contact with them, took about a year to write a grant proposal, and in that time, we put together a force, board of directors, if you will, of enthusiasts, outdoor enthusiasts.

And started planning and looking and looking at the topo maps.

We actually, once we got the property, hiked it in grid patterns, so we could see the anomalies that stuck out and started planning our trail system from that.

- It's one of those places where, you know, most people are looking to get away from the rocks, you're looking, oh, there's a big rock, I can climb that one.

So you're kind of reversing what you're looking for there.

- Right, we have three things in mind.

We have beginners, intermediate, and experts.

So we wanna make things easy so that beginners can do it, without a problem.

We want something that's a little more challenging, a little more difficult.

And we want stuff so that the big boys can come in and play and still have something to do.

And this particular piece of property has that.

We've got over 200 feet elevation change on the property, and rocks everywhere.

You've been there, you know, - I've been there, it is fantastic, it's nothing like you can imagine in Kansas.

So, but right now it's time for a short break.

When we return, we'll shift into four low, and learn what it takes to crawl Kansas in a four by four.

We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Let's get into the nuts and bolts about what people need vehicle wise to be safe on the trails.

So what kind of vehicles do you allow out there?

What's available to take on the trails?

I know there's some things you don't wanna take out there.

What's your best bet to people first starting out?

- Well, it depends on what your interest is, because we have hiking trails, we have mountain bike trails, and then we also have trails for off-road vehicles.

So you need to have four wheel drive.

We do require that you have a factory hard top or a roll cage on your vehicle, and everybody needs to have a seatbelt.

And we also are very strict about no alcohol in our park.

So if that's something that people need to get through the day, we're not the park for you.

- So if you're someone new out there, is this the kind of new community where if you need help or have questions, are the other people out there wheeling gonna give you help and advice and help you spot or what kind of community do you have around these events?

- This is a very tight community, the off-road community, more so than even your church choir.

I mean, they're there to help in any way they can.

If they're out there and somebody needs help, they don't mind stopping and helping because they've been there before.

Everybody starts from ground zero and moves up.

So as their vehicles get bigger, their driving skills get better, but they remember where they came from and that's with a base vehicle, stock vehicle.

So they're all about helping.

- So how many miles of have you guys developed out there so far?

I know it's one of the most densely packed amount of trails that you can for any sort of off-roading in Kansas.

So what can someone look forward to?

- We've got almost 38 miles of trails in 380 acres.

We're twisted and go back and forth.

In the summer, it's great because the foliage is out and you can't see from one trail to the next.

In the wintertime, when the leaves are off, you can actually see three or four trails over, they're that close.

But you don't realize it when you're out there wheeling.

- And for some people out there, you know, three to eight miles of trails, they're thinking, oh that's from Topeka to Lawrence.

But of course, what's the speed limits out there?

I mean the max on the easy trails, are you going eight, 10 miles an hour at the most?

- Well our speed limit in the park is five.

- [Jay] Five, okay.

- And that's on our main loop trail.

You get on the trails and you may do two or three miles an hour.

- Because really you're not gonna be able to go faster than that on those trails, otherwise your vehicle won't make it off.

- That's right.

- Exactly.

- Okay, well let's talk about some of the events you all have out there.

'Cause I know besides just getting people out there wheeling and having fun in this community, you also give back a lot too.

But just give us a brief rundown of what we can expect throughout the year at Kansas Rocks - Robin.

- So we have our largest event is the last weekend in February every year, and it's called our frostbite event.

We will see over 1000 people at that event.

Huge people come out in groups and families.

And so that's a really big event that- - And there's camping - Absolutely.

- At any of these events or any of the weekends too, right?

- Absolutely.

We are open every weekend and that includes camping.

And then we have another large event which we have in October every year, and it's our Creepy Crawl Event.

Which is really driven for families to come out.

We have a trunk or treat for the kids, costume showcase, we have a bounce house, petting zoo.

And then we also have 40 acres of our park that we turn into a haunted trail.

So the first hour of the haunted trail is not scary so people can take their kids through.

And we have over 60 volunteers that work on that haunted trail and it's really, really phenomenal.

And then after the first hour, it gets a little bit scarier, of course it gets dark.

So that's a really big event we have every year.

And then the last big event that we put on every year is in December.

The local Rotary Club out of Fort Scott, really relies on us to bring in the toys for the underprivileged children, and everyone comes together and it's just amazing.

Every year we have a box truck full of toys that are donated.

- A lot of amazing people out there wheeling.

But it sounds like you have a lot of amazing volunteers.

How large is your stable of volunteers?

- Well, on our park manager's board, we generally have between 25 and 30, but we have an adopt a trail program, where we have 10 different clubs involved, and each one of those clubs may have 50 to 150 out there for our adopt a trail.

And then any special projects that we have up, we put the feelers out and we get people that come in and say, hey, I can be there with a skid loader, I've got a track hoe, I can do this, I can do that, I'd love to help.

So we have just a phenomenal group of people that want to be involved and volunteer.

We've named it aptly the People's Park, because ultimately, the volunteers are the ones who've actually put the park together.

- This is fantastic.

I mean good people doing great things, and having a lot of fun while you do it.

So thanks for kind of putting the myth of flat Kansas to bed.

So we appreciate it and I can't wait to get out there again 'cause it is a blast.

- Come on out.

- All right.

It's time for another short break.

When we return, we'll meet two women on the trail who wear dirty as a badge of honor.

We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Two lifelong adventurers, Denise Selbee-Koch and Jennifer Woerner joined their passions for the outdoors and Dirty girl Adventures started its trek.

Now for nearly 10 years, the Dirty Girls have been taking people on hiking and kayaking events around Northeast Kansas.

Now with a permanent launching point in Noto, Compass Point is leading to all sorts of new adventures.

So outdoor lovers your whole life, how did Dirty Girl Adventures get its start?

Where did that first dream come from?

- So Jennifer and I met 24 years ago in an alternative learning environment.

And one of the ways that we used to teach pretty much all the subjects was outdoor activities, so environmental education.

And taking people who had not really had a lot of experience outdoors.

So we did a lot of volunteer work, we did service learning.

So the students had voice, choice and planning.

And then eventually Jennifer moved on, she's an occupational therapist, to a more traditional OT job.

I moved on to a more traditional social work job, but we missed the idea of sharing outdoor adventure with others and chose to share it with people that were kind of like us probably.

So our goal was to aim for serving women, and really take the part where a lot of us grew up playing outside as kids and doing outdoor adventures.

But then you go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, and the next thing you know, you haven't really played outside other than with your kids.

So to reconnect women to nature and their own playful outdoor loves.

- How have you seen their souls blossom?

I mean, so it had to have been pretty rewarding to think you can go with this.

So yeah, tell us about a rewarding experience from the beginning that made you reinforce the idea that we're gonna start this.

- Well, the outpouring of encouragement from people was really rewarding for us.

Our first hike, we had about 50 people sign up to go with us.

- Wow.

- We were hoping for just a couple.

- We were gonna carpool with Suburbans, and we ended up hiring a bus.

- Wow.

- And it was 13 degrees in March.

- Great first, great first run.

- Great first hike.

So from the very beginning, there's been more people than we could ever hope for, want to come along with us.

Like Denise said, mostly women.

And it's been really rewarding to see their friendships blossom.

We've had several women that knew each other back in high school, but hadn't seen each other and connected again.

We have women who just moved to the area who have now found a group of friends.

We have women who've developed brand new friendships with the whole group and they are now adventuring on their own and going other places without us.

- I think also we do take dirty dudes and dirty kids and dirty dogs on leashes but the heart of the group is the connection of women and it's open to all, it's so interesting- It's a safe place, empowering - It's a safe place, there's no judgment.

So all the dirty girls are accepted, and you might find your people that are your people people, but you're nice and kind and accepting and helpful.

And the outpouring of just all of the connection and love that they have for each other is amazing.

- We have a lot of people that come to us and say, oh, I'm too old for that, or I'm too big, or I'm not strong enough.

And that is really one of the most rewarding pieces for us is showing others that they can do it.

And our backgrounds allow us to adapt activities and grade them up or grade them down so that everyone can participate.

- There really is something for everyone.

Athletic level, probably any age.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

- We're coming up kind of on a break, but first, what are some of your favorite adventures?

Like we talked about kayaking and hiking, what all do you offer?

- I mean, my favorite kayaking is the Kansas River.

We call it our river home, it's our river.

Other rivers are cool too, but the Kansas River is a special place because it covers the heart of our state.

So that adventure is my favorite overall.

But honestly I love to kayak on Lake Shawnee and Lake Perry and lake anywhere really, but the river's my favorite - My favorite is hiking in Perry State Park.

There's lots of beautiful trails, beautiful trees.

And yeah, Kansas is not flat.

- No, not at all.

No, yeah.

Spend a day with anyone up here today and you'll be changing your tune.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, it's fantastic.

- After another short break, we'll find out more about the Dirty Girls' path to success.

We'll be right back.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to "Working Capital."

Okay ladies, so we're on the adventuring now.

Kayaking, some hiking, backpacking.

What's some of the events coming up?

What can people expect in the next few weeks?

'Cause I know you have way too much going on there that it's probably a little overwhelming, but what a great spot for community.

- We have a great schedule lined out for the summer.

This past year, we polled our customers and tried to find out what do they really wanna do in the new year?

And many people wanted to do more backpacking, do more camping.

- Specifically river camping.

- Yes.

- That's awesome.

- So we've got some camping on the schedule this year.

- Tell us a little bit about the river camping real quick.

To me, this is a fantastic event.

- So the river camping is, I mean we love to lolly gag, honestly, we don't really paddle, you have to paddle on the Kansas River, but we like to stop at all the sandbars and look for treasures.

And so we just kind of meander down the sandbar, and we kind of usually know where, we pre-paddle, so we know probably where we'll camp, get there, set up camp, everybody brings their dinner, we set up a hand washing station, build a big fire, and have dinner around the fire.

And we work hard to coordinate with full moons.

I think I got at least two or three full moons covered for river camps this summer.

And they're my favorite.

- There's no way that wouldn't be a lifelong memory, whether you go once or you've gone 10 or 15 times.

'Cause I can just imagine the stars, the reflections on the water.

- Last year we also had fireworks for the 4th of July on the sandbar.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Wow.

- It was amazing.

- And concerts?

- Yeah, so sometimes we have had a musician join us on the sandbar too, so we paddle a ways down the river and I hang out at where we're stopping and wait for the musician to be delivered.

We have river friends who have motorized boats, so they can deliver artists to the sandbar.

- That's so cool.

- [Denise] We'll probably do that again this summer.

- It's cool.

- It's all about creating that unique and special experience for people.

- Cool, speaking of that, something new within the last few years, you purchased kind of a landing spot there in Noto, in North Topeka, Compass Point.

So tell us about the vision of that and how that is helping Dirty Girl Adventures and really helping the community there.

- So I think we've always wanted a base camp, and we'd looked at several other options, and nothing ever really came together but we've always loved Noto.

And so when we saw the chance to buy the property, with the outdoor courtyard, two blocks from the river, we did that.

It's changed a little bit, we opened four years ago, we've decreased our retail and increased events, because retail isn't what we love, it's people and connection that we love more.

We do still have our sort of high end, best outdoor gear available, but less random stuff and more events and adventure.

And we added something that both of us love a lot, which is live music.

- Live music and are you having yoga classes there?

Do you sometimes do yoga out in nature somewhere else?

- Yeah, yeah.

- We have yoga classes every Thursday and we have lots of other classes that help people improve their health and wellness, from dietary classes, to stress relief, to women's retreats, to art classes.

Denise and I teach some of them, sometimes we have guests come in to do the teaching.

But again, it's about creating opportunity for people to connect with others, to learn and become more healthy.

- Do you have any businesses come in that use your services to team build?

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

That keeps us busy pretty much year round.

We have been able to offer some continuing education opportunities and retreats for professionals, social workers.

We also take corporate groups or we pair up with Forge, the young entrepreneurs group, or whatever they're called, business group in Topeka to do fun activities with them, which all of those are really fun.

It gets us to meet different people.

We have groups from Kansas City and people coming from Iowa.

I mean, yeah.

- So what's in store?

What's in the future?

- Well, we're really excited for our summer schedule.

We've told you about some of the adventures, we've got lots of adventures on the schedule, but we also have a lot of music.

So this is the fourth summer that we're offering music in our outdoor courtyard.

It's a fun space, outside.

- Canoe bar.

- There's a, yep.

- With a handmade canal boat originally made in Kansas as the bar in front of the canoe.

- That's awesome.

- Yeah, we have food trucks.

It's a family friendly atmosphere.

We'll get out the bubbles or the sidewalk chalk for the kids so parents can have a drink, listen to some music, everybody's happy, have some food.

- That's fantastic.

- So we've got over 20 dates for the summer, with bands coming from the northeast, the southeast, and then we've got all the great Topeka bands coming in to play.

- I think we have music 12 months out of the year, but the summer on the courtyard is- - Really special.

- It's just a big yard party, everybody can come and have a fun time kind of place.

Our music schedule's amazing this summer.

- Well, we're looking forward to all your adventures coming up and in the future, so thanks for being with us.

- Thank you.

- Thank for having us.

- Well, that's a wrap for tonight's show.

I'd like to thank Robin and Dave Killion from Kansas Rocks Recreation Park, along with Denise Selbee-Koc and Jennifer Woerner from Dirty Girl Adventures for joining us today.

As always, if you know of an interesting business or business topic, we want to hear from you.

So give us a call, drop us an email, or send us a letter.

See you next time, and thanks for watching.

It's all about business, and you've been watching "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU and Go Topeka.

(upbeat music)