The spooky experience isn't for the faint of heart
Many San Diegans are aware of the Haunted Trail in Balboa Park and "America's most haunted house" in Old Town, but they might not have heard of Deadwood, a thrilling, spooky, scary place in Pacific Beach put together by a pair of local teens, Kai and Katherine Eichhorn.
"We’ve been doing a haunted trail for six years now," 15-year-old Kai Eichhorn told NBC 7. "We started in 2018."
"Kai starts prepping it a year in advance," Katherine said, "but, putting everything together — it probably takes us around a month."
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This year’s theme is based on their summer trips to Wisconsin, where they would visit the man who started it all.
"This whole thing was inspired by our Papa, our mom's dad," Katherine said. "He used to do haunted houses for my mom when she was a little girl, and we just loved that and wanted to carry on the family tradition from him."
Deadwood isn’t any old haunted walk-through.
"We created a motion simulator ride," Kai said. "Universal Studios was mostly my inspiration. All of the rides there — I like the engineering part of it."
Kai designed it, built it, coded it.
"We worked for over 1,000 hours on it," Kai said.
And it sure paid off.
"I'm very happy with it," Kai said.
"Yes, definitely," Katherine seconded.
Visitors enter through a haunted mine, then, if they make it, they ride through the mine shaft and end up in Deadwood, where they have to try to escape.
"It's thrilling, it's an adventure and a journey," Kai said.
Tickets are sold online for around $9 and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
If you’re brave enough.
Each year Kai and Katherine pick an organization to donate the money they've raised. This year, it's Make a Wish.
The twins hope make their simulator technology available to Make a Wish recipients who want to experience the thrills of a roller coaster but might not be able to make it to a theme park.
