EAGLES MERE -- A popular winter attraction in Sullivan County is back on after a two-year hiatus.
The ice toboggan slide in Eagles Mere is up and running and Friday night fans came out in droves for a ride.
Flying at neck-breaking speeds, feeling icy winds slap your face, the ice toboggan slide in Eagles Mere is simply a pure adrenaline rush.
“Most amazing thing in the world,” said Elizabeth Decherney of Eagles Mere.
“I’m like freaking out about going on it but that’s just because I’m a worrier,” said Tori Garcia, who was up from Virginia visiting her grandmother.
The ice toboggan slide is open for business once again after the two previous winter seasons were too warm for it to be built.
Toboggan after toboggan slid rapidly down the chute then rocketed out onto the lake below.
“It’s a total rush and then when you hit the bottom you go super-fast and fly out across the lake, it’s awesome,” said Decherney.
“It was pretty awesome, it was fast and cold, it was a good time,” said Chris Carichaner of Tunkhannock.
“I wasn’t really wasn’t all that afraid the first time I went on but now I am kind of nervous,” said 8-year old Anna Kipp from New Albany.
But even amid this polar vortex, the volunteers who make the slide say they weren’t sure if it would be a go.
The slide weighs 240,000 pounds so the lake needs at least 12 inches of ice on top to be safe and strong enough to hold it.
“The lake just wouldn’t freeze, every time we’d get a little bit of a freeze on it, we’d get a rain and it’d really warm up,” said Michael Morris, one of the ice slide’s board members.
The recent weeks of below freezing temperatures did the trick.
But then this week’s snow added additional weight on the lake, causing breaks in the ice after water flooded over the top.
“The snow weighs down on the lake and it pushes down and what you do is get little ice holes that open up to release the pressure and then obviously you see where the clear ice is out there it flooded out,” said Morris.
But everything still came together, which is very great since this the largest fundraiser for the borough’s fire department.
$25 gets you a toboggan that seats up to five for one hour, with two trips down the slide guaranteed.
The ice slide will be open Saturday, February 8 and Sunday February 9.
Weather permitted it will be open the following weekend, Friday through Sunday.
Hours: Friday 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The slide will stop accepting riders one hour before closing.