Park features keep kids cool

As the mercury climbs up the thermometer, most Clark County kids spend their days inside with the air conditioning on high. Outside, the park slides and swings are hot enough to melt the freckles off little legs, but that doesn't mean local parks have nothing to offer children during the summer months.

Dozens of local parks from Henderson to North Las Vegas offer elaborate water features that make that old sprinkler kids used to dance in look like an antique.

Area water play features vary from the basic statue-mounted fountain to water-filled playgrounds topped in rubber mats filled with spouts. The surprising spurts of water pop up in a mysterious choreography only a 5-year-old can predict. While swimming pools require lifeguards and admission fees, area water playgrounds are free and need no swimming skills.

In a drought, the water features are a better idea than swimming pools, according to local water playground equipment dealer Henry Sudweeks. He said although none of the local features recycle the water on site, there is still less water loss than with a swimming pool.

"A pool loses water that walks off with the kids in their swimming suits, splashes out and then with evaporation you lose quite a bit," Sudweeks said. "You're constantly filling up the pool when it's in high use in the summer. You can't just fill it up once and be done with it."

Las Vegas Valley Water District representative Tracy Bower said well-maintained water features are an acceptable recreational water use, even in a drought.

"Even if the water isn't recycled there, if it's recaptured it's recycled in the sanitary water sewer and put back in the lake," Bower said. Home backyard sprinklers don't have that benefit because water is lost in the ground or as runoff.

Sudweeks pointed out that unlike backyard sprinklers, park water playgrounds don't spurt water constantly. Most of the water features are kid controlled. Sudweeks said when a child activates the controls, the water features will run through a program that lasts less than five minutes. Usually only a third of the water features are active at any one time.

"There are usually about four or five different programs, so every time it's a unique experience," he said. "That's part of the whole enjoyment of it -- the anticipation of what's going to come on next."

Families can catch that anticipation at the closest park, or make a summer of it and try them all. Just don't forget the sunscreen as you explore the following guide of local water playgrounds.

Las Vegas

There are water features at the following parks: Heritage Park at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue; Hills Park at Hillpointe Road west of Rampart Boulevard; Jaycee Park at Eastern Avenue and St. Louis Avenue; Bruce Trent Park at Rampart Boulevard and Vegas Drive; All American Park at Buffalo Drive and Oakey Boulevard; Bob Baskin Park at Oakey Boulevard west of Rancho Drive; Angel Park at Durango Road north of West Charleston Boulevard; and Woofter Park at Rock Springs Drive and Vegas Drive.

The city has a new water feature in the works for the Huntridge Circle Park at Maryland Parkway and Franklin Avenue, and Sudweeks' company just put in a new playground at the Sunny Springs Park at Golden Talon Avenue and Buffalo Drive.

Stacy Allsbrook, a representative for the city's department of Leisure Services, said the best water feature in town is at one of the city's newest parks -- the Centennial Hills Park at Buffalo Drive and Elkhorn Road.

Tucked into the Disneyland-like playground is a rubber-covered surface filled with hidden fountain spouts. As children run across the pond-themed surface, water shoots into the air. Along the edges, green stone frogs spit water from their mouths. A friendly alligator swims along the edge inviting kids to balance along his back. Add the playground's butterflies, caterpillars, climbing wall and daisy-shaped shade structures, and "It's the cutest park you've ever seen," Allsbrook said.

Clark County

In the Clark County Parks and Community Services jurisdiction, the following water parks are available: The Alexander Villas Park at 3620 Lincoln Road; Paul Meyer Park at 4525 New Forrest Drive; and Winchester Park at 3130 S. McLeod Drive.

Doris and Ted Lee are funding a new water playground set to go into Joe Shoong Park at 1503 Wesley St. According to landscape architecture manager Ron Blakemore, the project is out to bid now and it will be at least three months before construction begins. If all goes as planned, the water playground will have three or four spray features. In the works are a rainbow arch tipped with bursts of water, a raining buckets spray structure that will spill buckets of water onto youngsters, and a waterbrella feature that will create a spray of water that children can duck under for shade.

"They're all smaller features," Blakemore said. "Just something to get you wet."

North Las Vegas

There are water parks at the Nicholas E. Flores Park on Allen Lane south of Craig Road and at the new 20-acre Nature Discovery park at Aliante next to the Information Gallery on the corner of Interstate 215 and Aliante Parkway. The Aliante water park, also built by Sudweeks' company, features a sea serpent and palm trees in a prehistoric theme.

North Las Vegas parks planner Tony Taylor said securing park land and funds have been a bigger priority than putting in water features.

"It's not something we've really been stressing," Taylor said. "But it doesn't mean one won't sprout up next week. It's not something that's high on the priority list."

Right now, two city parks are in the planning stages set to open sometime in the next year. Amenities for those parks have not been announced.

Henderson

Water playgrounds can be found at the following parks: Acacia Park at 50 Casa Del Fuego; Hayley Hendricks Park at 811 Ithaca Ave.; and Mission Hills Park at 551 E. Mission Drive. A water feature is a planned amenity for the park set to be added into the Cinnamon Ridge Subdivision at Cloudcrest Drive and Burkholder Boulevard.

The Mission Hills Park water playground is among the valley's most spectacular. Children can run through water arches, lounge under sprinkling palm trees or dodge past hand-cranked water cannons.

Not all of Henderson's water features are park based. The zero depth water fountains outside the Starbucks at Green Valley Parkway and Sunset Road are a popular attraction for local families.

A new water playground just opened in Boulder City at the Veterans Memorial Park. Sudweeks said it may be one of the largest in the area. The park, designed by local schoolchildren, features a castle and a water tower and spray cannons.


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