Untitled Document

Volume 1, No. 11. June 29, 2001

It's a wave pool!
Camelbeach Waterpark in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, announces the arrival of Kahuna Lagoon, June 22, 2001. Measurements: 31,000 square feet (9,394 meters), four 200 hp blowers making five types of waves up to 6 feet high (2 meters). Delivered by Aquatic Development Group.

It may have been a low-key opening—made even more so by dreary weather and afternoon thunderstorms—but this was a significant installation for the mountainside waterpark. By building a wave pool, the largest in Pennsylvania with the highest waves in the Northeast United States, Camelbeach graduated from being merely Camelback Ski Resort moonlighting in the summer as a waterpark into a bona fide attraction in its own right.

"A waterpark without a wave pool is incomplete, we believe," said Sam Newman, president and CEO of Camelback Ski Corporation. "It's like a ski area without a lift to the top of the mountain." Founded in 1998, Camelbeach may have come to the wave pool installation late in its maturation, but that was part of strategic planning, Newman said. "We are a small company. We built the waterpark ourselves." The ski resort, which already had a swimming pool and two body slides, first bolstered its summer clientele and revenues with a lazy river, interactive play center, a four tube-slide structure, and a family raft ride.

Now, Kahuna Lagoon is a big attendance driver, said Dave Johnson, public relations director. Though the wave pool's rain-hampered debut saw a small crowd (about 10 percent of capacity, Johnson said, "pretty embarrassing"), Camelbeach has seen a 50 percent increase in season pass sales spurred by the promise of Kahuna Lagoon's opening.

Camelbeach now has something most other waterparks already had, but Kahuna Lagoon has something few other wave pools have: a mountain view. From a deck created by a former three-story building torn down to its ground floor and basement, loungers can look across the breaking waves to Camelback Mountain and the Delaware Water Gap valley beyond. Placing the wave pool, in fact, became more problematic than financing it. "We did a lot of moving it around on paper before siting it," Newman said. The pool had to be located so that it didn't interfere with any ski runs, and Newman also wanted the pool to bathe in the afternoon sun while both providing and being part of the view. "We managed to pay attention to all those factors," he said.

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