U.S.'s largest wakeboard park to be built in Guthrie
Entrepreneur plans 'cable park' near Guthrie
By David Zizzo
Staff Writer
GUTHRIE — "This is stupid,” Dan Trotter thought to himself when he first saw it. "This is nothing. Nobody's going to have fun doing this.”
He changed his mind. After watching one operating in Florida, the Edmond man spent the next few years — and eventually will spend millions of dollars — planning and building the largest one in the world. When it opens this spring or summer, Trotter's Central Oklahoma Wakeboard Center south of Guthrie will be only the fifth wakeboarding "cable park” in the United States.
A cable park is basically a small lake where people ride wakeboards, "wakeskating” boards without bindings or even water skis. All without boats. Boarders are towed around in a circle by ropes attached to an overhead cable. The ride is stoked with "kickers” and "sliders,” a variety of structures in the water that riders can jump or slide over or along just for the thrill of it.
And if you're good enough or wild enough, or a little of each, you can build up momentum for some "sick” air along the short curves.
"You use your body weight to pull out,” said Trotter's son, Daniel, 20, a serious wakeboarder and wakeskater who runs a 13,000-square-foot pro shop already operating at the site. "It acts like a big spring.”
The 10-acre cable lake, which Trotter expects to open in March, will be only the first of many attractions the Trotter family — Dan, former owner of an Edmond boat dealership, and his wife, Cathie, and their sons Jeremiah, 30, and Daniel — plans on the 160-acre site. The Trotters will add a golf driving range, paintball courses, batting cages, off-road courses for motorcycles and bicycles, and a monster truck track. The center also features a 3,200-square-foot bunkhouse that will provide basic accommodations for participants, such as wakeboarding teams.
Until now, wakeboarders in these parts have had to do things the usual way: behind a boat. But those boats, particularly the specialized wakeboarding ones with internal bladders that can be filled with water to adjust the ride and wake, cost at least $30,000. Then you've got to buy insurance for the boat, fill its tank, haul it to a lake and bring friends to drive and serve as spotters.
"By lunchtime, we've already burned through a tank of gas,” Daniel Trotter says of frequent outings in his $60,000 rig. "You can spend $220 a day.”
Wakeboarding at the cable park, on the other hand, will cost $20 for two hours or $40 a day. Season passes will be available for about $800, although that price has yet to be set.
A cable park also can offer a better ride than a boat, Daniel Trotter said. Many tow boats feature a "tower” that raises the rope attachment point so that the boarder is pulled slightly upward as well as forward, making it easier to get up, stay up and perform tricks. The even higher attachment point of ropes at a cable park — 45 feet above the water — means riders have that much more upward pull, making getting up and staying up easier, he said.
And the cable tows at a constant speed, which will be about 16 mph at the Guthrie park when it opens, although the park can more than double that speed for demonstrations, competitions or other special events. Also, without boat traffic or surface area for waves to build, the lake should be much smoother than a public lake.
Trotter searched for years until he found the right spot, enough space close to a major highway and the metropolitan area. The Trotters bought their own heavy equipment, and Dan and Daniel went to work gouging a half million cubic yards of dirt from the slope just east of Interstate 35, turning up "some pretty neat stuff,” such as Model A fenders, from the land that served in recent years as a state fishery and a ranch.
Water to fill the lake to an average depth of 10 feet will come from four 300-foot-deep wells drilled by a Mustang company. A German company has measured the lake and is building the six cable towers and other equipment for the tow system.
The system will be the first in the United States to feature a moving chair to launch riders, Trotter said. Combined with the typical standing start or running start (for wakeskaters with boards that don't have foot bindings), there will be three ways to get on the water. Riders will sign liability waivers and must wear helmets and approved life vests.
If you fall along the 4,600-foot length of the cable, you swim to shore and walk back to the launch point. A computer sensing a riderless rope will detach it as it passes the loading area, and another rider will launch at that point on another tow line. The center will offer lessons and a winch towing device to help beginners.
Like many older water sports enthusiasts, Dan Trotter is more at home on skis. But he plans to give wakeboarding a try on the cable. And maybe on a slow night, Cathie might grab a rope, too.
"If they can, I can,” she said.
Originally Posted by metro
Bookmarks