BGuthrie Photos: CA -- Lake Arrowhead -- SkyPark at Santa's Village

CA -- Lake Arrowhead -- SkyPark at Santa's Village:

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Description of Pictures: I hadn't even considered that they'd charge to let you see tacky Christmas displays but they did so I didn't go in.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Wikipedia Description: SkyPark at Santa's Village
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SkyPark at Santa's Village is an Outdoor Adventure Park with year-round mountain biking, hiking, fly fishing and open air activities in the Skyforest section of Lake Arrowhead, California. The Park resides on 230-acre (0.93 km2) of natural forest with meadowlands, ponds and an apple orchard. At the core of SkyPark is The Village, which includes historic log cabin restaurants and shops, seasonal entertainment, and open-air activities. SkyPark’s nearly 10 miles (16 km) of year-round mountain bike trails, hiking trails, fly fishing, archery, ziplines, seasonal ice skating or roller skating rink, rock climbing and more are available to the public for the price of admission. SkyPark’s conservation program includes the Henck Meadowlands Conservation Trail, Conservation Hikes, and Outdoor Educational Programs for school-age children. 30-acre (0.12 km2) of the park have been preserved in their pristine condition to remain unused. SkyPark at Santa's Village opened on December 2, 2016.

The previous Santa's Village was opened in May 1955 and closed in 1979. It was the first franchised amusement park, one of three built by developer Glenn Holland.

The others, also defunct, were in Scotts Valley, California and East Dundee, Illinois. The latter opened in 1959 and closed in 2006, but reopened in 2011 under new ownership as Santa's Village AZoosment Park.

Opening more than a month before Disneyland, the 230-acre (0.93 km2) park was one of Southern California's biggest tourist attractions. It had kiddie rides, including a bobsled, monorail, and Ferris wheel. It also had a petting zoo, live reindeer and shops including a bakery, candy kitchen and toy shop.

Reduced attendance and revenue shortfalls caused the park to close on March 1, 1998. The property sold three years later for $5.6 million, and served as a staging area for logging operations. The faded candy cane signpost and dilapidated buildings bec ...More...
Atlas Obscura Description: SkyPark at Santa's Village
Near Lake Arrowhead, California
Costumed elves and mountain bikers co-exist peacefully at this abandoned Christmas-themed adventure park.

The original Santa’s Village opened in 1955, six weeks before Disneyland, near the mountain resort of Lake Arrowhead. For years, it thrived as a year-round destination for families, with horse-drawn coach rides, a monorail, free-roaming reindeer, and tours of Santa’s house and workshop.
Bankruptcy, a destructive 2003 wildfire, and its misguided use as a logging site all eventually contributed to its demise, and the property sat abandoned for years.
New owners took over in 2016 and added mountain biking trails to the 230-acre property. As locals themselves, they opted to keep the Christmas village layout when they realized how it triggered treasured childhood memories for many southern Californians.
Now it is known as Sky Park at Santa’s Village – a one-of-a-kind business model that combines kids’ activities like pedal cars and mini-train rides with an outdoor adventure theme that includes ax-throwing, fly fishing, and ziplining. Giant candy-cane street lamps and gingerbread houses line the main thoroughfare, and it’s not unusual to see cyclists changing a tire on astroturf beneath a giant Christmas tree as stroller-pushing parents stream by on their way to the Magic Tree bouldering room or the Silver Bells skating rink. Old amusement park rides from the park’s earlier days are scattered on either side of the bike trails, and there is a figure-eight hiking trail that runs through the park. Joyful shouts from exhilarated bikers can be heard
The food options reflect the park’s wide-ranging customer base, ranging from burgers, pit BBQ plates and craft brews to hot chocolate, ginger doodles and ice cream.

The above was from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/santas-village-2
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2022 photos: This website had its 20th anniversary in August, 2022. Overnight trips this year: (February) Asheville, NC to visit Dad and Dixie and some other members of my family, (July) A trip out west for the return of San Diego Comic-Con, and (October) A long weekend in New York to cover New York Comic-Con. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: about 386,000, up 2020 and 2021 levels but still way below pre-pandemic levels.
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