Things to Do in Saratoga Springs

Named after Brigham Young University’s furry feline mascot, Cosmo’s Kids Club invites youths to experience the university’s athletic programs both on and off the field. A dozen game vouchers grant access to four football games and eight men’s basketball games, and a Cosmo T-shirt acts as a ticket to all other BYU sporting events. After games, members can hop onto the field of play to practice kicking penalty shots, shooting free throws, or measuring grass to be sure it’s regulation height. Kids up the ante at show-and-tell with stories from facility tours and meet and greets with BYU athletes. The club ensures at-home allegiance with posters, access to Cosmo’s website, and a monthly mailer from the mascot himself.

Benjamin Allen believes outdoor pursuits can positively influence those in need. This belief has led him all over the continent, building a ropes course for an orphanage in Mexico and setting up two courses for troubled youth at Provo Canyon School, a bit closer to home. Wanting to share his knowledge of nature with the public, he set up a course, CLAS Ropes Course, near Utah Lake nearly 20 years ago. Benjamin and his crew have since erected more than 50 ropes courses around the country, continuing to inspect ropes and train others how to run them.

CLAS Ropes Course continues to grow each year, creating obstacles such as a giant swing that releases passengers 40 feet in the air, a 400-foot zipline that whizzes through forest canopy, and a "leap of faith," where adventure seekers jump from a treetop platform to a trapeze. A log balance beam hung 30 feet above the ground and a 24-foot-tall rock-climbing tower test agility and endurance, and a fleet of 20 canoes lets paddlers navigate a mile and a half of river. Many of these structures play host to team-building activities focused on developing a group's creativity and tolerance for hearing one another sing. Staff members tailor their instruction to families, dating groups, or athletic teams. They often apply their approach to athletes, such as a professional golfer who traveled all the way from Texas hoping to conquer her fear of not qualifying for tournaments. She defeated the log balance beam, departed victorious, and qualified during her next tryout two weeks later.

Walking into Creativity Art Studio is like walking into a sunset. Eyes fill with the golden and maroon hues of the walls, which foster tranquility in the mind so that students can explore their thoughts and express their dreams. Amid the colors, shelves of ceramics and painting supplies equip artists-in-training before they sit and let their imaginations travel across their chosen canvas with the guidance of a creative and adept staff.

Experienced creators can spread their wings solo, while those dipping their toes into artistic waters for the first time can use a stock of stencils. After each masterpiece has been touched up with its final details, staff experts guide patrons through the finishing process, whether that be waiting for the paint to dry or determining the best way to sneak sculptures into a museum display. Ceramic pieces stay behind for a glaze and stint in the studio's kiln, to ensure a lustrous piece that can be picked up roughly a week later.

Cascade Golf Center pairs an 18-hole golf course with 54 holes of miniature golf, inviting golfers of all stripes to enjoy the challenges of the game. Sculpted into the rolling terrain of surrounding foothills, the 6,055-yard course begins with the relatively flat land of the front-nine Valley Course before plotting an oscillating path over the back-nine Mountain Course, where clubbers must contend with elevation changes and the shrill tones of displaced Bavarian yodelers during backswings. As golfers traverse the course, crests give way to scenic views of snowcapped mountains and distant Utah Lake.

The Center’s miniature-golf courses include two obstacle-ridden, 18-hole courses and an 18-hole, natural-grass putting course designed for focused practice. Those looking for conventional putt-putt pleasure can steer shots past the waterfalls and streams that hug The Falls, or sink two-putts among the inventive rock formations and evergreen corridors of The Arches. The natural-turf putting course eschews exotic obstacles in favor of sloped greens hemmed by a cut of rough that, combined, resembles a small golf course or the front lawn of an overenthusiastic landscaper.

At 24 miles long and 13 miles wide, Utah Lake is as vast as it is beautiful, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who has explored more of it than Chad Chorniak. As a yacht captain and experienced scuba diver, Captain Chad takes passengers out on his 27-foot Catalina yacht to experience the scenic lake on the water, and also helps aspiring scuba divers plunge below the water’s surface into a new hobby of underwater exploration. Though he’s known for seeking out and investigating Utah’s best diving spots, he always conducts his Discover Scuba lessons in an indoor pool. This gives students an added level of comfort as they learn to breathe properly through the scuba apparatus and grow webbing between their toes.

When a great white shark approaches with opened jaws, the last thing you want to do is swing a golf club. But when that same scenario presents itself at Laser Assault, swinging a golf club is exactly what you should do—the path through those jaws leads to one of nine holes on the black-light mini-golf course. Other menacing creatures such as snakes and T-rexes guard the remaining eight holes, which wind their way through murals of aquatic critters and verdant jungle brush.

More creepy neon wall paintings illumine Laser Assault's two-level laser tag arena, whose labyrinthine corridors twist and turn past clusters of barrels and through clouds of fog—a one-minute video grants a vivid tour. Outside the arena, only an air hockey table glows inside the arcade, a non black-light space with classic games such as Hoop Fever—the more exciting sequel to Hoop Indifference.