Funding for Working Capital is provided by the friends of KTW, Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and Kansas Department of Commerce jump.

If you are one of those people who thinks Kansas is really that flat, boy do I have an adventure for you.

Nestled in the Flint Hills just outside Manhattan, Kansas.

Today we visit Wildwood Adventure Park to see what all the zipping is about.

Join us on working capital.

So last month we talked about travel agents and travel advisors sending us on crazy vacations all over the world.

But we have extreme adventures right here in Kansas.

And for anyone who says Kansas is flat, I think we've already had a little bit of a hike getting up here today.

Yeah, so today we're at Wildwood Adventure Park in Manhattan, Kansas, and Wow, guys, yeah, just over 10 years now with this, right?

Yep.

It'll be 11 years next month, But Kansas is flat.

How do, how do we zip line here?

Yeah, right.

I think we're dispelling the rumors already right off the bat.

Correct.

Yeah.

These hills don't lie.

There's quite a bit of hiking uphill.

So you have the mid to go downhill.

So we're in it.

Where did the start of this come from?

Who, whose idea was it to add zip lines in Manhattan, Kansas?

Well, Manhattan is in the Flint Hills, so it is not very, not very flat here.

So yeah, we've got a lot of terrain.

So it's conducive to ziplining, I guess.

So anyways, my, my parents ended up with this property about 20 years ago or so, and we're looking for a, a way to utilize it that would be fun for the community, try to get kids and families outside and kind of unplug and at the same time do something safe but get outta their comfort zone.

And that's kind of where, where the idea started and we just dove in, you know, somewhat naive I guess, about it.

And just learned a whole bunch along the way.

We never thought we'd be zip lining for a living, but especially in Kansas, like you said.

Yeah.

But it's a great place to do it.

Like you said, there's lots of hills and trees and beautiful views up here.

Gorgeous views.

The Flint Hills is a great place.

And you know, you can see when, when we get on top tall grass prairie, which is one of the things that's, you know, diminishing as the last remaining section.

City's growing things.

So yeah, this is kind of one of the last, last preserves the cons of prairies right south of us.

And so anyways, they want to do something without putting a bunch of houses up here and kind of preserve it a little bit.

And yeah, and that's what we came up with.

So it's been, it's been a fun adventure for us.

Had you ziplined down as a family already?

We did.

Was it, Where'd you guys experience that first, where it kind of hooked you for that feeling?

'cause you are providing quite an experience here for people.

Yeah, yeah.

The first time we went as a family to, my sister was living in Nashville, Tennessee, and we went out there to visit her and we're looking for something to do outside and get a little exercise.

We do have a zip and hike course here, so we hike between all the lines and just, you know, it's, it's a healthy activity to get out, out into nature and, you know, get the blood flowing a little bit and the adrenaline and, And while Zipline, there's like three generations.

So like we have grandparents, we out there grandkids all the time.

So you just saw diverse in age?

Yeah.

And it was just something that's like, this looks like the backyard kind of a joke at first.

Like, oh, you can do this in the backyard.

And then it kind of just sparked from There.

And on that note, since it, it can be a family bond and it can be a business coming out with all, with all their employees.

But what is the oldest?

I know when I was here before, you already had someone I think that was fairly old and it was already hooked on it, so.

Yep.

What's your oldest now?

98 is our oldest.

Yep.

And are They planning A coming back on the 99th?

I Mean's?

We'll see, because before it Was, it was something like, it was like an 89-year-old and they'd Already Been and they were planning on coming back And yeah, we've had quite a few 90th birthdays out here.

We did my grandmother's 80th birthday out here.

So as long as you can hike and go up and down stairs, which there's railings on everything, you can zip line.

You have to be at least five years old.

Okay, Next Thing I Was gonna ask.

Yep.

And weigh between 50 and 2 75.

Okay.

And if you're able to hike and go up and down ramps and stairs, now you can zipline.

I Do have some really short people in my family though.

What, once your hiking requirement, You're good.

As long, Long as you're 50 pounds, that's a great thing, right?

There's no height requirements.

Yeah.

And, and there's been upgrades over the years.

I mean, just in harnesses.

So I mean, such a safe thing to do the way you guys are here and facilitate it, get everything.

But I mean these are, these are new styles.

So We got the full body harnesses now.

Everything, anything has to be at least rated for 5,000 pounds as far as ropes and things like that.

But the cables themselves are 26,600 pounds.

The trolleys are 18,000 pounds.

These here that holds you up.

Everything has backup over done on purpose.

Yeah.

Everything has backup.

So if one, if one thing does fail, which it never has, there's something there to back you up.

But I mean they're, they're basically rated where you could, you could zip a, a truck across, Correct.

Yeah.

If you had to in a predicament, Just couldn't slow 'em down.

Yes.

That's, you could not slow 'em down you hope?

Yes.

Yeah.

Hope their own brakes work in the end.

Yeah.

But yep.

So yeah, the harnesses, so 10 years harnesses helmets expire.

So we had our 10 years, so we had to get all new equipment, so now we're good for another 10 years.

So yeah, everything has different lifetimes, so we're always getting new stuff and a CCT regulates us, so there's always new things we have to keep up.

Kind of like OSHA with construction, very similar to that.

Yeah.

So they're always having new regulations and everything that we have to keep up with.

So it's ever changing, Sipping in Kansas again.

Full-time job now here, is it?

Or do you guys balance something else?

Because like a lot of entrepreneurs in Kansas Yeah, We have a lot of side gigs.

Yeah.

We, Well mostly zip, zip lining.

Yeah, we do have a two mile obstacle run as well, so Okay.

People can also book that and they can come out and we've got about 25 obstacles.

We've got monkey bars, mud pits, balance logs, rope climbs, big slide, things like that.

And it's, and it's up and down and around the hills.

So it's a, it's a two mile course and it's great for team building or just like I said, family activities.

Do You set up an adventure weekend where you just try to draw all sorts of racers?

Is there, is there A race?

Yeah, we, we have done in the past.

We usually do one run in the spring and one in the fall where we try to like time it and make it an event.

Yeah.

And this year we've just mostly been just booking individual tours and We actually partnered with like Topeka, so they brought out every sixth grade class to do the trail run over, like for their graduation.

So that was like real, that was all like April, there was like 80 kids every week.

So we didn't have like our spring event, but we might do like our fall one.

'cause that kind of overtook a lot of that as well.

I'm getting, getting out in the weeds here, but those little kids, did you see some people kind of blossom in those, in those obstacle Courses?

Absolutely.

You know, Especially team building.

A lot of kids that haven't had the opportunity actually to get out and, you know, get out into the woods and experience stuff like that and get dirty and, and so yeah, I think so.

A lot of 'em, you know, some of 'em would cry and some of 'em were, were happy and it's a mix of everything, but, But they all did it.

They all did it.

So they persevered so they felt accomplished and they had fun and they helped each other along the way.

It's something that somebody's struggling on an obstacle, you know, it's not time.

So we encourage 'em to like help each other out to get across and Yeah.

Think outside the box.

Help Yeah.

Hand up and, Exactly.

Yeah.

Little team building.

Okay, so, so let's go back.

Had the property, you decide you're gonna zip line.

So before you even get into, per, did you get permits first or did you just come out here and think how many zip lines and how are we gonna do this?

How did you plan out the actual course?

Yeah, well I, I grew up here so I was, we were like, my family was very familiar with the, you know, the deer, deer trails and things that were up here already.

So we kind of knew how the, the lay of the land and, and That road was already in because the seventies they were gonna develop this.

So we kind Of Knew that we wanted to start and end riot base Camp.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

So That helped.

I think That did help.

We ended up going to A-A-C-C-T conference, which is association for Challenge Course Technologies in Florida.

My dad and I went down there and made some contacts with some people who build zip lines.

And so I think that was our first step.

We, when we actually got serious about it and we met a guy, Jeff, so shout out to Jeff Allen, but he, he, he kind of, he came up here and did like a site visit and then got us pointed in the right direction as far as the first steps to, the first steps to take, you know, is the, is the terrain, is it gonna work, you know, the elevations.

And then we did do some studies like, you know, population studies, traffic studies we did, worked on the, the permits and stuff.

'cause he, he thought, you know, he kind of saw the same thing that we did.

He is like, I think this will work.

This is a unique piece of land right outside of, you know, college town here in Manhattan.

Yeah, yeah.

Fort Riley's nearby.

We do a lot of, we do a lot of partnerships with them for the soldiers and stuff coming in and out.

And so that's, yeah, that's kind of where, where that started.

And then just working with the city, it, it did take quite a while to get all the permits and, and you know, funding and things like that.

Yeah.

Everything lined up.

So, but eventually it all came together and I mean it took about six, six or eight months to build everything.

Once we started, once we kind of had the trails cleared out, we knew where we wanted to put 'em.

Yeah, I mean 'cause almost you gotta figure out a little bit of switchbacks here and there because Yeah, Since Kansas is so flat, I mean we're, we're getting what, a hundred, 150 probably feet of elevation Change Between Base camp and probably the Top Base camp is about a a thousand thousand feet elevation.

Okay.

And then up on line six we're about 12, 12 50, something like that.

Wow.

Okay.

So yeah.

And then we got a tower up there, but we had survey companies come out and shoot the elevations and the distances on the, where we on the each proposed like takeoff and landing site.

Yeah.

And then the engineers would tell us, you know, you're gonna need a 30 foot platform here and a 10 foot platform there and seven degrees slope in your cable and stuff like that.

So the longer the line, the more slope you need.

Okay.

And the shorter the line, the the less so Gotcha.

Typically.

Yeah.

And the less tension on the line.

So line one's only about a hundred foot long.

It's kind of the get people comfortable with the equipment.

Yeah.

And just the feeling of zip lining and you kind of build your confidence from there.

But it's only probably the tension on that's probably 500 pounds or something.

It's pretty loose or you know, but line six I think is about 3000 pounds of tension on that line.

It's just so cool to see extreme experiences here in Kansas.

And we're gonna get into more of the actual zipping, we're gonna show some of that and talk about more the business.

But this is pretty much 10 minutes right off I 70.

So all those people flying through that think Kansas is flat.

Yeah.

As soon as you hit those hills and that windy current, this is some place you can, you can drop off for a day.

Yeah.

Yes.

And it's an amazing spot.

So give us just a moment to catch our breaths from hiking flat Kansas and we, we'll be right back.

You're watching Working Capital to catch up on previous episodes of Working Capital Scan the QR code with your phone or go to www.watch.kw.org.

This one does go over the trees and then line four comes back this way and it goes down through the trees.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This one's the, the icebreaker.

So it's our first, first of the big lines.

This one's about 750 feet long.

So we do have these red lines painted here as you guys come up.

Just stay behind those lines so we get you hooked down in one of these safety lines.

Okay.

I'll go on across and get the brakes out.

But yeah, if you're zipping over with a camera or something, you don't have to worry about, you don't have to hold on.

You can hold on anywhere on along your rope there, but you don't have to.

We do ask you don't go upside down though, just so you don't get a shoelace caught in there.

And then don't put your hands on anything metal.

So, So do you guys ever get bored doing this?

No, of course not.

So pretty good career.

Yeah, It has been.

It's a lot of fun.

It's, it is the same thing every day.

Yeah.

But it's a new group of people every day.

Yeah.

So it's a completely different experience with who's in the group.

So it's never, never a day.

It's not repetitive.

Yeah.

Get to meet all kinds of new people all the time.

That's been a lot of fun.

And it's fun to help them.

A lot of people are scared of heights and things like that and it's fun to get those people out here and, and they, you know, watch 'em help 'em kind of overcome those fears and you know, it just help 'em grow as a person and Yeah, it's, yeah.

Their Corporate zone a little bit.

Yeah.

So those are a lot of times the people who get the most outta it are people who are the most scared.

They don't think they can do line line one and then they end up doing all seven in the free fall and it's pretty cool.

All right.

We'll see you guys over there.

So pretty much keep your feet in the L position, like a seated position.

All right.

Until you're completely stopped.

Don't try and run up the ramp and then don't touch the cable, the trolley, anything metal.

All right.

Alright.

You're just gonna sit back and relax.

So just So you're gonna hold right here?

Yep.

Zip on.

All right, dragger.

All right.

Yep.

So when you're ready you can sit down or just walk off and just hold that yellow rope.

Hold down lower.

Yep.

You just wanna hold the yellow rope.

Yep.

And then you can just sit down.

You don't have to walk out.

If you just sit down, it'll, the momentum will take you.

All right.

Yep.

Just pick your feet up.

There you go.

Good job.

All right.

Good job.

So part of this business is, I mean you guys can't do it all.

So you do have other guides here.

Yeah.

Where do you find them?

How do they get interested in this?

Is it people who have came and enjoyed it and they're like, Hey, can I work here?

Yeah.

Where do you Find these great employees?

We've definitely had a few people that have ziplined and they're like, are you hiring?

I would enjoy this.

I would say majority of ours are college students.

They are looking for, we're part-time seasonal, so they're looking for a part-time job where they're in school.

We do work with Kansas State University with a park management degree.

So that's like the guy to this day, Addie, she's doing an internship with us.

She did a practicum with us.

And so we do get quite a few students from that.

And then we have a few teachers, firefighters who have summers off or like they have four days off if they're on and off every 24.

And then a few just full-timers.

So I would say people that come out here a lot, people that are outdoorsy, adventurous, aren't afraid of a little physical labor.

You are gonna sweat, we'll zip when it's a hundred or when it's 30 degrees out.

But yeah, they're definitely, Dan and I, we do all like the behind the scenes stuff.

And then we have probably about 15 guides and they're definitely the face of Wildwood there.

Who's gonna take you out, give you the experience, take you through the course and everything, make sure you're Safe, Correct, yep.

Give you that extra confidence and maybe get over that next obstacle.

Correct.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'd probably go through about a month of training or least more before they, they start guiding on their own.

And yeah.

Besides the fun day to day trail maintenance, I mean, how much upkeep then, yearly?

Is it something you do kind of in the off season during winter when it's not snowy?

How do you guys plan for?

Well we do upkeep, we do daily inspections, so we're always looking for a, you know, a loose board on the platform or a branch that needs trimmed.

So we just try to keep up on it on a lot of it daily.

There is some things that we do during the winter, we'll, our quick jump for instance, we have to send that device off to get reinspected.

They go through it, kind of recalibrate and recertify it.

Yep.

Because it is a, it is a pretty cool piece of equipment, but of course, yeah, you guys are relying on that to keep everyone safe, So, yeah.

Yep.

So that's something that's an annual, an annual inspection on there.

And then we do have a, a third party that does an annual inspection as well on, on the whole course.

So they, they go through and check all the, they torque all the bolts and on the clamps they look for wear on the cables, loose boards, on the decks, trees that need trim, things like that.

So it's, it's quite a bit of maintenance just throughout the year.

But you know, there's certain things, tree trimming is usually spring to early summer.

We, we usually go through a couple times in the spring and knock back branches.

It takes the First zip through and gets hit in the face to decide how far back.

You want to cut That here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's usually amber.

She, she does all the dangerous things.

So this is line seven here.

So we've got two, two double lines or racing lines on Wildwood here.

So this is, this is the last one.

So we can send two people at a time on this one.

And at the end is where the 40 foot free fall is.

So once we get over there, we'll hook you guys into there and, and experience that.

So this is the one where there's probably a lot of trash talking, even though it's just kind of Gravity taking over, right?

Yeah.

This is the redemption.

Yeah, this is the redemption line.

So we have line five is the first race.

Yeah.

And you know, the losers on that line are looking for a little redemption.

So that's where this one comes in.

And now double or nothing, You don't have to tell us which one if it is, but is, does one line predominantly run faster than the other?

Usually the one I'm breaking is a little faster.

I let it, I like my side to win, so I let 'em come in a little fast.

But So You're saying tip your guide as well?

Is that what you tip saying?

Tip your guys front If you wanna win races in the end, fantastic.

Exactly right.

So, Or race somebody smaller than you Because weight does help in this one.

Yep.

Yeah.

Physics has something to do with it too, so, So that's great.

So maybe eat at the chef and come out here after there you after a full stomach if you really want to Get A little fast.

If you wanna be really fast, that's a great idea.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

Or get stomach cramp from hiking after you're really full.

Weigh your options.

Let's check this out.

You guys ready?

Yeah, let's go.

Addie, if you wanna hook in on this one, we can go across and break.

3, 2, 1 out.

I'm coming in for you.

And really these guides do take all the worry out of this.

So if you're scared at all, Is it fun?

They won't, they won't take this one of your lifelong memories for sure.

So 3, 2, 1, zip.

Nice Work.

Wow.

How was it?

Good Race.

Yeah, that was fun.

I think you got him.

Perfect.

Alright, So just gonna, and then take one step to the left so that, yep.

You're centered and then when you're ready just fall straight back.

Here we go guys.

Woo.

We kind of, we, we completed the experience on the zip lining part.

I am not going to try the course today with all the obstacles 'cause Kansas really is not that flat.

That's right.

So let's talk about guests and all.

Have you had very many guests from outside of Kansas?

Yeah.

So what's your normal, what's your normal tourist look like here?

Yeah, we, since we're so close to I 70, we get a lot of people driving through, like going to Colorado or Missouri.

And then because of K State and Fort Riley, there's constantly people from all over.

Like, it always surprises me.

I'll say like, oh, where are you from?

And they'll say, and I say, oh, ity Kansas.

And they're like, well I went to Zipline.

And I'm like, really?

Okay.

Yeah.

And it just like kind of like takes me back every time I hear that answer.

But yeah, we've had people from all over the country.

We had some people out from the Congo.

Actually I say it was the farthest Away Congo.

Wow.

Yeah, we have a I English group in Australia.

Australia.

Yeah.

We've, I mean just everywhere.

Like it really helps with K State and Fort Riley.

'cause you get just so many different people.

The Guy the other day was from Sweden.

Yep.

Yeah.

So think of K State now.

So you, you do have an influx on game days and all.

So what's your normal operating season here?

Because I know you, you're probably not gonna go when there's ice on the lines and, and dead of winter per se.

So yeah.

What's normally your, your typical season?

Well we usually, we usually close down for maintenance and like I say, we send the quick jump off to get recertified every year.

And so that takes a month or so to do that.

So we're pretty much shut down January, February.

But we'll open up in March.

Wow.

And then, So spring break You're kind of ready for spring break?

Yeah, that's kind of our, our first busy boost of the year.

Kind of get us going again.

And then, and then it's just kind of mostly weekends and things like that through April when school set lets out for the summer, that's kind of our busier season.

So usually June, July, August are kind of our busiest.

Yeah.

Busier time of the year.

And we'll be going seven days a week during that time.

And then through the fall it slows back down a little bit during the week, but it's a great time to come out then fall Colors, I can all colors.

I mean it looks like a whole different course when you're out here.

Yeah.

In the different season.

So right now everything's green.

You come in the fall it'll be, you know, reds and oranges and yellows and then, and you know, in the winter or early spring there won't be any leaves.

So you can really tell how high you are off the ground when you're going over the trees you can see all the way down.

So that's fun.

But do, Do the fall trips take longer 'cause of everyone stomping and taking pictures of the pretty leagues?

I mean I, as you can see here, I think you'll, you'll see a lot of our crew today in this, 'cause everyone always has their cameras out Yeah.

Because of the experience.

But Yeah, we encourage, I can imagine encourage cameras all the time.

So Yeah.

Yeah.

The, it does, you know, if people wanna stop, we, we go at the, at their pace.

So we're out here for them if they want to stop and take pictures if they wanna look, you know, sometimes there's wildlife around.

Yeah.

They wanna stop and look at that or enjoy a view.

Our, we do require reservations 'cause we take out so many people in a group.

Yeah.

And we have to schedule guides to take you out.

So we like to do that.

It's a safety.

It's safety.

It's for you.

If you just walk up, maybe we can get you in.

If it's small, we might have a tour going out.

But the best way is our website, which is mhk adventures.com.

You click reserve now it shows you the days, you click how many people you have, it shows you the times available.

If you don't see something, you can always call and we might be able to fit you in somewhere.

But yes.

And then once you book, you'll get a confirmation email with like wear closed toed shoes, long hair pulled back in, low arrive 20 minutes prior to tour time, check in and then it'll have a waiver link in there, get waivers done beforehand.

If you have minors, we need Parent Guardian to sign for them.

Then you show up and we, we handle the rest.

That's fantastic.

But yeah, any, pretty much, anytime somebody wants to go, we're available.

So seven days a week, you know, Largest group you've had, I'm guessing you probably split 'em between guides.

Yeah.

If you have a really large group.

Yep.

So I mean we've had a local company brought out like a hundred people once.

Yeah.

So we just split.

Like do You start then like some start on Three.

So some like a Barbecue, a shotgun start for Barbecue.

Yeah.

Well everybody will start on line one.

Yeah.

But we'll split 'em into like 10 groups of 10 groups.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so each group of 10 will have their own two guides and then they'll just kind of piggyback through the course to, you know, and then, you know, they all, they all end up here at the, at the end and Yeah.

Takes a little bit longer.

Yeah.

But if we, the people while they're waiting, they, we got yard games down at base camp.

Yeah.

They can sit around the, some of those people will bring a lunch and It feels like a little camp in the woods.

It is a perfect Setting.

You can cook a hot dog on the grill, hang out.

So there's, you know, plenty of things to do while you're not zipping.

The largest group will do, like if everyone knows each other, we'll take out like 12, 13, if you get over that, we'll split into like two groups that got back to back.

We'll gear you up together, but you'll split in half and go with two separate guides.

That's Yeah.

Just the feel of of rushing through the trees Yeah.

Is amazing.

So thank you so much for I guess having this vision and seeing it through and, and 'cause now so many other people are able to experience this who will never get to go to these other countries where we see the zip lining where you, you think zip line.

So Yeah.

I love that you've carved this out of the Flint Hills.

I mean it's such a great thing right off of I 70.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I see this here for years to come already.

Already past 10 years.

Yep.

Right.

So about 11.

You guys really have a good foundation Here.

Yeah.

Well we hope so.

And we hope to keep doing it for a lot of years and thank you guys for coming out.

Yes.

It's been a lot of fun hanging out with you today.

Thank You.

And yeah, helping us small business so we appreciate that more than anything.

It's Good that we love showing the entrepreneurial spirit.

Yes.

So we appreciate especially bucking trends.

Yeah.

So, you know.

Yeah.

So we hope you've enjoyed today.

Hope you found a little excitement in this.

And we hope to see you next time you've been watching Working Capital Funding for Working Capital is provided by the Friends of KTW, Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and Kansas Department of Commerce.