Wild River Country Hoping For A Wild Winter

Wild River Country, the North Little Rock-based water park, isn’t usually associated with snowmen, snow tubing and s’mores. That will change this year when the park opens Wild Winter Country from Nov. 22 until April 1.

Chris Shillcutt, the park’s vice president of operations, decided to offer snow-based attractions after seeing the idea at a trade show last year. Atlanta’s multi-attraction Stone Mountain Park has offered winter activities for years.

“It’s awful hard to grow your water park on a hundred-day operation. … I figured, well, I lived in Atlanta for six years. If they can do it in Atlanta, we could do it in Little Rock,” he said.

The primary attraction will be Tubin’ Ruben’s Slippery Slopes, a nearly 300-feet snow-tubing site that will be located on a sloped road separating the park’s parking lots and the ticket booth. A two- to three-foot snow base will be blown atop the asphalt that will compact as it melts, and then additional snow will be blown atop the base nightly. Riders will sit on specially made inner tubes with hard plastic bottoms that can be used on slushy or firm snow.

Additional attractions will include Cub Paw Raceway, a smaller tubing slope where young children will ride plastic sleds; a S’mores Pit where families can purchase s’mores kits to make their own treats; a Polar Bear Playground for making snowmen; and Snowball Alley where kids can throw snowballs at targets. The park’s restaurant and gift shop will become a “ski lodge.” An ice skating rink could be added next year.

Between 30 and 60 part-time and three or four full-time employees will be hired. The park’s fence is being moved to enclose the site.

The owners hope to fill a void during Arkansas winters, which offer a lot of chilly, rainy days but not much snow. “Our thought was that where else are you going to get to snow tube, and really snow tube, in Arkansas?” he said.

Shillcutt and his partners with Aquapark Holdings are spending half a million dollars to prepare the park for winter operations. That includes a 50-ton snow-blowing machine that will be fed by the park’s water lines. Snow will be blown about 24 hours a day for a few weeks before the park opens.

Shillcutt wasn’t sure how much the park’s operating costs will be, but the partners hope to make a profit during this first year of operation despite the startup expenses.

Admission for the snow tubing attraction this winter will be $18 per person for 90 minutes. The rest of the park can be used all day for $6. A combo rate will be available.

The park will be open Thursday and Friday nights, all day Saturdays, and Sundays from noon until 7 p.m. It will be open every day during Christmas break and on Christmas and Thanksgiving afternoons. The park also will be available for group rentals.

Shillcutt and his partners, Mort Fishman and Michael Slattery, bought Wild River Country in November 2012 from Halcyon Attractions.

The park had been struggling in recent years with a lack of revenues. In 2005, the state Department of Finance and Administration shut it down for failure to pay sales taxes. The company later filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was sued by Entergy Arkansas and others for failing to pay its bills.

Shillcutt, who lifeguarded at the park during its first year of operation, is a 25-year veteran of the aquatics industry. He previously ran Six Flags White Water in Atlanta and then managed Great Wolf Lodge hotel/water parks in Kansas City, Kan., and Pocono Mountains, Penn.

He bought a park that wasn’t being well maintained. No maintenance was done during the winter months. The lights on the Interstate 430 sign hadn’t worked in years, and neither had a waterfall on the river or another feature on the activity pool.

“The first two weeks, people would ask at the admissions counter what rides are down,” he said. “Well, that question should never be asked.”

The new owners invested about a million dollars in the park. Maintenance workers were hired year-round instead of seasonally. Repairs were made during the offseason so that there was little downtime in the summer. Meanwhile, wheelchair ramps were built and fresh coats of paint were added where needed. Shillcutt said attendance was about the same both years at 165,000. One factor this year: The last two weeks of July were unseasonably cool.

Aleatha Ezra, World Water Park Association director of park member development, said about 20-25 of her association’s 1,200 North American members have added winter attractions in recent years, though only about three to five that did so were primarily water parks. Those include Indiana’s Deep River Waterpark, which offers ice skating.

Adding snow attractions to existing facilities has had a mixed record of success, according to water park industry consultant David Sangree, president of Hotel & Leisure Advisors. Stone Mountain Park’s Snow Mountain in Atlanta has done well, but an effort to turn Cleveland’s Progressive Field, a baseball stadium, into a snow tubing run struggled over two mild winters.

Little Rock has mild winters, too, as does Georgia, but Sangree said the circumstances in Cleveland are different. People living in northern areas don’t want to do cold weather activities when the weather is mild, and they can just find a nearby hill when it’s snowing. Southerners, meanwhile, have few opportunities to play in the snow besides a snow park.

Weather will be the primary factor in Wild Winter County’s success this year, Shillcutt said. Rainy days will force park personnel to cover the snow with a tarp. A warm summer will add to the cost of keeping the area covered with snow. Icy weather will prevent travelers from making their way to the park.

“If we have a mild or cold winter, we’re good,” Shillcutt said.