What's it like to be a Casa Bonita cliff diver? We asked some: "The people that still talk to you about it make you feel special"
While the public waits for the full opening of Casa Bonita, the theme restaurant resurrected by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, CBS News Colorado got the chance to dive into the past of one of the most iconic parts of the pink castle in Lakewood: the divers themselves.
Beau Gentry, a current cliff diver and entertainer at Casa Bonita said he couldn't wait to get back to work once the restaurant started the rebuild.
"It's just that rush I love," Gentry said. "The rush of falling through the air and doing your flipping and moving. I still I get to the edge sometimes and I'm like 'okay, all right, I gotta send this' but I'm very comfortable with these rocks."
RELATED: Read all of CBS News Colorado's reporting on Casa Bonita's reopening
The motto for the remodel was "keep it the same but make it better" and the pool is a big part of it. The old pool used to hold 30,000 gallons of water but the owners have carved out more space and added an extra 5,000 to 6,000 gallons in the process. They also added a heater for those divers.
"The water is way better, way cleaner," Gentry said, laughing. "You can tell that just from the looks of the water, it used to kind of be a green color. Now it's a pristine, crystal-clear blue."
Former diver Sherry Wehmeier said she's excited there are divers jumping from rocky cliffs once again, but she holds onto her fond memories of the old way, even if she admits it was not a safe situation.
"I can just say I'm a little more hardcore," Wehmeier joked.
One of the big changes comes from the high dives. While there used to be other Casa Bonita restaurants around the county, Colorado's was the only one with a 30-foot dive from the top of the waterfall. Now that it's the last Casa Bonita standing, the Colorado location is the only one to have diving at all, even without the highest dives coming back.
Gentry said that doesn't mean guests should expect a more laid-back dive show. He said the safety improvements and larger pool have given them more leeway to do more dangerous stunts in a safer environment. It also smells better, according to Wehmeier.
"That was one of those things that you remember, like when you're a kid, you remember this certain smell," she said.
"Yeah, it's a lot cleaner now," Wehmeier said, laughing.
While doing the math, Casa Bonita estimates in the past 49 years, there have probably been about 350,000 dives performed, with around 10 to 15 divers performing each year. Wehmeier said she was one of the few female divers in the 1990s, which came with its own set of challenges. She recalls putting on the gorilla suit for part of the show and, because the gloves were too big for her hands, she started to slip on the rope, and fell into the pool in the suit.
"I was like, 'oh my God, I'm not dying in a monkey suit, I'll be on the news forever,'" she said.
Well, that story made it onto the news eventually!
She said the legacy of being a Casa Bonita diver is one that sticks with her even 30ish years later.
"The people that still talk to you about it make you feel special because you got to be a part of it," Wehmeier said.
After enough poking and prodding from CBS News Colorado Mountain Newsroom Reporter Spencer Wilson, Gentry admitted how amazing it is to be the one jumping from the rocks each night.
"If it ever comes out that I'm a Casa Bonita cliff diver," he said, "people really get into it like, 'holy moly, you're like a legend man!"
If you have not already signed up to be the next folks to come to the world-famous restaurant, you can sign up here.
