Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Zipline for...Excalibur?

I didn't want this to get buried in the other post about the Bootleg Canyon Flightlines, but during my interview with Ryan Geene, the manager of the attraction, he revealed that Greenheart LLC, which owns it is in negotiations with Excalibur to build one there, too.

They two sides are in early negotiations, but one issue, Geene acknowledged, is that they still want tourists to want to come to Boulder City to ride that system. Here's what he told me:

"We’re trying to see if we do one line, a teaser line, so you fly out and when you get off there’s a kiosk where you can sign up to go do the real deal out in Bootleg Canyon. ... But it would have to be exciting, too. If it's just a slow line, it’s no fun, why would you want to do a boring thing? So it would have to be exciting and leave you wanting more."

Geene said they're scoping out places to erect the steel cables, maybe "somewhere above the drawbridge where you walk in so you’re flying over everybody as they’re walking in."

He also said they're talking to the Hualapai Indian tribe in northwest Arizona. They're the ones who built the Grand Canyon Skywalk and they're always looking for new things to build to give tourists more to do. Also, because the Hualapai aren't beholden to the environmental regulations on their portion of the Grand Canyon that the US Parks Service are, there's more opportunity to create a zipline across some portion of the big hole. That said, it doesn't strike me that ziplines are all that harsh on the environment but I doubt the U.S. government would permit it given that they reject most everything else including the Skywalk.

Anyhow, more of these things are coming.

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