Wild West Ranch, It's is open again

[Tomh]

I recently checked the Wild West Ranch website, and low and behold, as of the 4th of July weekend, then opened back up. It seems like they only have limited offerings this year, but it's their first time open in a couple of years, and the economy stinks right now. I would imagine that over the course of the next few years, they will ramp the operation back up. Good news if you ask me, the Lake George area needs as many, and diverse entertainment offerings as possible. The more there is to do, the easier it is to attract tourists.

[Dawg]

What's funny (not ha-ha funny), is that I was in the region around early/mid-June, and I had some time to kill... so I strapped on my blades, and went down the bike path leading from Canada Rd near Million Dollar beach, all the way to Great Escape.

During the run, I came across this abandoned what looked like a ghost town. I was looking at it and it looked fairly impressive because it looked like an ol' West Ranch... I haven't seen that kind of ol' western theme since Frontier Town, or that place near Lake Lazurne (the one that always drives the truck with the giant ceramic bull in the trailer).

...anyway, it looked well maintaince, but closed. It even went fairly far back like it had a lot to offer. It had a lot of attractions, and all these years, I never knew it existed!

Low & behold, it was maybe a day or so later I checked the Post-Star & they had an article about the strained relationship between the owner & town of Queensbury about some unsightly road.

...so I followed the story, and saw it progress. It was eerie & ironic, how something I thought should be open, based on what I saw wondering why it was closed... all of a sudden had a surge of stories on the owner & the battle. The owner just bought the LG Forum, I guess hoping to turn it into something profitable.

He also owns a mountain of sorts, I guess where the battle of Queensbury started, saying that he had some unsightly road leading up there, but I guess they kissed & made up.

I visited the site shortly after I came home from visiting there and it was still up.
Checking now... it's the same thing,but everything states that it's open

I wonder how well it did since they re-opened the ranch.

[Tomh]

It seems that they only had some of the former attractions up and running this year. That, combined with the down economy, and the bad weather, makes me tend to think that it was probably a poor season for them, but I'm sure that after being closed for two full years, they weren't expecting to fill the place to capacity as soon as they opened the gates back up. They are in a somewhat secluded location, so that works against them as well. I'm sure if they stick with it for a couple of seasons, get the advertising going, and slowly ramp up their offerings again, that business will build back up for them.

We've always had a good time when we visited them, but it certainly isn't a full day attraction for us. We can usually burn off half the day there, visiting fairly early in the morning, and staying until early afternoon. We always stay long enough to have lunch as their burgers and french fries are quite good.