RYZE Adventure Park Gives St. Louis a New Way to Play

Open since September 2021, RYZE Adventure Park in Maryland Heights offers more than 100 obstacles, plus a heart-stopping zipline and a death-defying free fall, on its four-story Adventure Tower. Are you up for the challenge?

If you would rather keep your feet on the ground, RYZE also has an 18-hole state-of-the-art miniature golf course, which glows with neon lights at night.

Here, Greg Hoffmann, one of the founding partners of RYZE Adventure Park, chats about his favorite climbing challenge and what makes RYZE a singular experience.

What’s the main attraction at RYZE Adventure Park?

The main attraction is the four-story Adventure Tower, which features a zipline, a free fall and approximately 113 climbing challenges. It’s all the best things about a treetop adventure course, but it’s not linear. You can make your own course, picking and choosing the activities and obstacles that you want to do. Not everybody has to do the same thing in the same order, and people with varying capabilities can choose challenges that are suitable for them. All the elements of the tower are color-coded, so you can easily decipher how difficult an activity is – you can probably tell just from watching other people do it, too. Unless you’re an American Ninja Warrior contestant, the black-colored elements will be super hard, but go ahead and give one or two a try.

It sounds like there are a lot of benefits to a nonlinear course.

Absolutely. There’s no pressure to do anything that you don’t want to do, and you can get comfortable with the course at your own pace. On a linear course, where everybody starts and ends at the same spots, you could run into someone struggling with an activity, and you just have to stand there and wait for them. Here, you’re engaged the entire time; no one will ever hold you up. We can put 100 people on the Adventure Tower simultaneously, and every single person will have something to do. There are a handful of these in the country, but this is a really unique attraction. It’s something that not a lot of people are going to get in their hometown.

Have you climbed on the Adventure Tower?

Oh man, I’ve probably spent more than 1,000 hours up there. My favorite element is the upside-down unicycle.

What other outdoor adventures make up RYZE?

We have a really cool championship miniature golf course. The 18 holes are naturally landscaped, and there aren’t any borders or walls around the course, which gives it a different vibe than a traditional, themed, wacky miniature golf course. Since it’s not themed or whimsical, it is geared towards teenagers and adults, but everyone is welcome. At night, we use glow-in-the-dark balls and we put lights in the cups, making for a unique experience. We get a lot of couples who come for date night and families who come after dinner. We also have a spacious covered patio with a TV that’s usually showing a St. Louis sporting event, and we have a big, turfed area, where people can play yard games like cornhole, washers and giant Jenga. Climbing is a great spectator sport, so people also enjoy hanging out in one of those areas with a beer or hard seltzer and watching people on the Adventure Tower. On top of the tower, there’s a deck with nice furniture, as well, so you can also take a break, sit there and enjoy the view.

RYZE Adventure Park is an outdoor attraction, meaning from late fall to early spring, it’s open, weather permitting.