Queensbury Planning Board approves zip line

PHOTOGRAPHER: Haley Viccaro

The Queensbury Planning Board has unanimously approved a zip line proposed for French Mountain that a neighbor is suing to stop.

During its meeting Tuesday evening at Queensbury Town Hall, the Planning Board gave its nod of approval for a year-round zip line to be built in the Lake George area, despite some public opposition.

Lake George RV Park owner Dave King sued the town earlier this month in an attempt to keep the Queensbury Planning Board from approving the project. King, whose 120-acre campground is located nearby, also filed a lawsuit in May against the Adirondack Park Agency for approving the proposal and issuing a permit.

The Lake George Planning Board approved the project in April.

“The zip-line’s adverse visual impacts on the aesthetic quality of French Mountain would detrimentally affect [the RV Park] and its guests,” the lawsuit states.

A zip line is a ride that allows people attached to a free-moving pulley to slide along a slanted cable, typically down a mountain or other slope. There are zip lines at the Adirondack Extreme Adventure Course in Bolton Landing, but they are much shorter than the proposed ride on French Mountain.

Ralph Macchio Sr., father of “Karate Kid” actor Ralph Macchio Jr., first proposed the Bear Pond Zip Flyer in 2012. He owns 650 acres of land on which the ride would be built.

The zip line is part of Macchio’s overall plan to rehabilitate the former Wild West Ranch & Western Town in Lake George, which he purchased in 2005 and closed in 2007. The ride would run from French Mountain to the Wild West Ranch property.

The zip line comes with a $1.5 million price tag and would accommodate about 43,000 riders annually. It would have four lines, running about 3,400 feet down the mountain, with an elevation drop of 800 feet.