Main Street Mavericks Business Spotlight: High Life Adventures

On day two of the Main Street Mavericks, we went to the North Coast of Oregon — hitting the family-owned High Life Adventure Park in Warrenton, just south of Astoria. Co-owned by Dave and Lancy Larson, with daughter Jana Dean managing their aerial ropes course in Seaside, the small business is a family affair — employing grandchildren to run tours and son-in-laws to help construct (and test) the ziplines.

As Jana told us, “I feel like our small business is really amazing. It gives you the flexibility to build your own schedule and build your own life. Even though it does come with a lot of stress, it’s also worth it. We care about every single customer. We are making sure they’re having a great time and making great memories. It comes from the heart with us.”

Here is our interview with the intrepid Dave Lancey and his daughter, Jana Dean.

Q&A With High Life Adventures

Tell us about yourselves and your small business!

Jana: My name is Jana Dean, and I am the general manager at High Life Adventure Park in Seaside, Oregon. Our family also owns High Life Adventures in Warrington, Oregon. We are on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and you can visit us at highlifeadventure.com to book any adventure you would like with us.

Dave: And I’m Dave Larson. My wife had the inspiration and came up with the idea with the zip lines. So, back in the day, I told her, you get permits, and I’ll build it. And I didn’t think she would, but she did. Between that and my son-in-law Shane, we got this thing started, and we had all the kids to help. It’s been a real success.

What did you do before you opened High Life Adventures?

Dave: I was in excavation and heavy construction for 45 years. And [running this small business] is so much better than construction that I can’t even believe it.

When did High Life Adventures open?

In 2012. Ziplines came in first in 2012, and then during the down season, it kind of gets slow, so we figured, what could we do to help keep our staff employed? And the idea of the restaurant was born.

What is your top piece of advice for small business owners just starting out?

Dave: I would say that to get a proper background, and understand the business very well. Get prepared by doing the background and the training if you can, and especially be paid for it.

Jana: And I think coming up with a business plan in the beginning and making sure you have all systems in place. Obviously, our challenge course is newer. We opened in 2020, and we thought we had everything figured out then, and then COVID hit, and obviously, there was a lot of bobbing and weaving through all the challenges that came up.

But educating yourself, and if you don’t know the answer, find the people who can help you through, for sure.

What’s the best part of being a small business owner?

Dave: I think the best part is the people that we run across that we would never have had a chance to meet. The experiences in our business and industry is very positive. People are happy to be here, and so the energy that they have passes on to us. So it’s the people, I think.

Jana: I agree. The people that we get to meet every day and the stories. We’ve had as young as three years old and all the way up to 102 years old out here on the zip lines. And we’ve had people get engaged here. We’ve had weddings, birthdays, just the good things. People, when they’re on vacation and when they’re doing one of our adventures, it’s all positive and good. Making memories with your family is what it’s all about, in my opinion. I’m getting goosebumps.

Do you have a favorite memory or moment from the park?

Jana: My favorite moments are when I have little random kids come up and give me hugs just out of nowhere. They just came and gave me a hug, and that’s the best thing in the world.

Dave: I would say we’re very fortunate that we can watch what’s going on right here from our house. One of the rides that we have is called The Swing. It’s supposedly the only one in the world, and they’re able to jump off the tower on a 20-foot lanyard, and they swing by here, and some of the expressions and the screams and the laughs. It’s such a huge range of responses from people. And it’s right here. I think that’s my favorite.

Jana: And it just was never supposed to be this way in the beginning, right? How life just kind of falls into place. My mom and dad bought this property when I was five, and this was the home I grew up in and lived in. And now we all help our mom and dad with the family business.

I have two daughters and my sister has three kids, and they all work [here]. Both my daughters have been able to buy their first vehicles in cash because they’ve worked here. One of my other daughters has also started a second job, and the work ethic that they have and what it’s taught them, the schooling that it’s taught them, how to interact with people, all the skills that they’ve learned just by working within our family business, is absolutely amazing.

And now, this is a legacy that we’re going to be able to leave the family. It impacts everything. It all started with an idea from Mom on the plane ride back home from Hawaii: To start zip lines. And now — just like Dad was saying — we are able to sit here and actually watch the zip-liners come down? This was just the family property that we all enjoyed, and we invited friends and family over to hang out. And now, we get to share this with the community and it’s such a special place. So that’s also pretty amazing.

Talking about the fire:

Jana: I’m sure you saw our new building coming up there. So, we had a restaurant and bar implemented about seven years ago. And then, last March, unfortunately, we had a fire in the middle of the night that burned everything down to the ground. We are rebuilding right now. And I do feel like our family; we never give up.

That happened on March 2nd, and spring break is right around the corner from there, and that’s one of our busiest times of the year. We were up and operating within two weeks. We’re not quitters. Even though that happened, we still got back up and going and still made our spring break timeline.

We keep going and look at the positive of every side — even though it’s very heartbreaking for all of us.

We all lost a lot in that building, lots of memories, and Dad lost all of his stuff. It was also his woodworking, all of his tools, everything was in there. Lots of his family heirloom stuff, too. Anyway, long story short, we are excited for this next chapter because we are going to be bigger and better than ever. We are going to add even more things to do. We’re talking about indoor rock climbing and axe throwing indoors. We have a lot of really great ideas to add to help complement our business here. If we have families where not everyone wants to go zip lining, they can do other things while they’re here.

And better serve our community during the winter. There’s not much to do around here indoors.

What’s one challenge you are facing, and how can the community help?

Dave: The challenges are more in the administration part of things in the office. Everybody is feeling the pressure of not having enough help. And it’s a constant juggling act to keep people here and doing tours. And there’s a lot of kids that are satisfied with just doing a little bit of work instead of working all day, and will call in sick or call in because they don’t want to do their tours or because their uncle’s [visiting] or something like that. There’s stress in the office to try to organize that and keep people staffed. In the summertime especially, it just gets crazy.

Jana: I feel like another way the community can help our business is during the slower times and during the seasonal holidays and whatnot. That is when our sales really go down in the wintertime because it’s crummy outside, but as far as gift card sales and gift certificates. That’s another way that the community could support us. Rain or shine. If you hop on our website, you’ll definitely be able to make reservations year-round.

Kendall: Just throw on a big coat, you guys!

How do people find out about you?

Jana: We have a couple of billboards. I think a lot of people traveling through see that, but I also think that I know for myself, speaking for myself personally, when I go on vacation, I look up things to do in the area, and so, we do get a lot through Google as well. Google Analytics shows me — I see this many people called our phone number from Google, so it just really depends. I think it’s a variety of things. We have rack cards all around. We have people who put rack cards all around Oregon for us at different hotels. Getting our name out that way, and like I said, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, all those.

If you could pick a goal for the future, what would it be? What’s next for High Life Adventures?

Dave: I would say being really busy year round and not worrying about the wintertime.

Jana: If we’re looking into the future, I know my thoughts for the future of High Life are that of our next generation. Also, having procedures in place dialed in, especially with everything being new with the new building, just having everything structured. So it’s easy to pass on eventually. And I hope that our entire family continues to benefit from our small family business.

Vendor Round-Up

And which of our vendors and partners are assisting High Life Adventure on their small business journey?

What site does High Life Adventure Park use for eCommerce? GoDaddy, with a local team at Oregon Web Solutions, and then Fair Harbor.

What POS do you use? Flybook, Fair Harbor, and Square.

Who is your credit card processor? Stripe.

Who do you use for business banking? Bank Of The Pacific — they are very friendly to small businesses.