WildPlay zip line, adventure course opens at Jones Beach in Wantagh

Lily Scout Mach, 9, of Bellmore, didn’t blink at the prospect of zooming around like Peter Pan on the aerial adventure course at WildPlay, Jones Beach’s towering new $4.7 million attraction.

“It’s pretty tall, but I’m not afraid of heights,” Lily Scout said after finishing the adventure course just after 2 p.m. on Saturday, the park’s first weekend.

Her dad, Jason, 45, and brother, Noah, 12, however, both admitted a touch of butterflies in the stomach when they were putting on their safety gear at the park’s harnessing deck.

“When I looked up I was kind of scared,” said Noah, whose only previous zip line experience was with his family at The Adventure Park at Long Island in Wheatley Heights. 

 “I was just hoping that I could keep up with the kids,” said Jason, an English and social studies chairperson in the Malverne school district. “Once you were up there … we were safely strapped in and we had great guidance.”

Wildplay’s opening weekend was interrupted by storms that pelted the park with rain and kicked up the wind. But a steady stream of guests braved the weather forecast and dealt with advance acrophobia with help from the park’s yellow-shirted guides. Perhaps the most extreme attraction is the one in which the goal is to fall — the "What's To Fear" jump, which invites climbers step off a tall wooden platform for a tethered 40-foot drop.

When guests express a fear of heights, “We tell them to stay looking straight ahead at the next pole and don’t look down,” WildPlay park manager Justin Hall said.

David Rooney, 53, of Malverne, overcame his fear climbing up the 50-foot high platform to the zip line launch. He enjoyed being free as a bird for a moment and sharing the view with three friends who soared on side-by-side 700-foot zip lines.

“It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be,” Rooney after he landed.