A New Sense of Winter’s Wonders : Visually Impaired Children Get Ride of a Lifetime at Knott’s Beagle Hill

A few wondered aloud if the snow was real. Others touched the ice-cold flecks for the first time as they waited for their turn and talked nervously about the ride to come.

But none of the visually impaired children rejected the chance to slide down the human-created mountain of snow.

“It was like flying. The wind was blowing on me,” said partially sighted Michael, huffing his way for the umpteenth time to the top of the slope at Knott’s Berry Farm’s 10th Winter Wonderland.

Every year, the amusement park invites a group of Orange County children to preview Beagle Hill, their snow-sledding ride, before opening it to the public the next day.

This year, the Southern California Blind Children’s Learning Center was invited, along with a dozen home-school children, to sample the sled ride.

The ride consists of a slope piled with 45 tons of snow, four runs and dozens of plastic sleds. The attraction, which opens today, will provide slipping and sliding through school winter vacations, until Jan. 2.

“I imagine it’s a whole different dimension when you can’t see,” Knott’s spokesman Bob Ochsner said. “You have to have a lot of faith that they’ll catch you at the bottom.”

Two ride operators sent the kids whooshing down the slope while another two caught them at the end of their short journey.

The children and the center’s teachers arrived early Friday morning just as a crew clad in bright-red sweat shirts finished grooming the runs.

The snow had been delivered about 6 a.m. by Orange County Ice which crushed blocks of ice in a chipper machine and then blew the snow onto the slope. About 12 tons are added daily, depending on how much melts.

Most of the kids had never been in snow, much less had the chance to sled.

“We were going so fast and I just slid down,” 3-year-old Danielle said as she listened to Christmas songs over the speakers. “I don’t want to go down again though--it’s somebody else’s turn, and I’m dancing.”

But 3-year-old Michael slid down the slope at least a dozen times, screaming with delight each time he went down the eight-second ride.

Sometimes he fell going up the steps to the slope, other times he dropped his red, tub-shaped sled. Yet, despite the obstacles, Michael always made it back to the top.

“I saw the kid every other time,” said Kevin Norris, supervisor of ride operations. “I think he went down more than anyone else.”

Those who didn’t want another turn on the slope were content to throw snow on their teachers and attempt to build snowmen. Almost every child described the snow with the same word: cold.

“The kids can tell which teacher is which by voice or smell, so with the snow it’s entirely by touch,” teacher Elayne Strong said.

“They know that snow is white even though they don’t understand the concept, and they don’t know what it looks like, but the next time they hear the word snow they will think, ‘cold and wet.’ ”