Amramp Creates a Safe and Accessible Entrance for Sunnyhill Alpacas
As promised in our Fort Macleod Courthouse blog post, we’ve got the full story about one of Amramp’s more unusual projects: installing a ramp at Sunnyhill Alpaca Ranch in Rollyview, Alberta.
Rollyview is a small hamlet located in central Alberta, Canada, that has a population numbering only 58. However, they aren’t short on Alpacas. “It was beautiful,” said Lorne Wensel of Amramp Edmonton, “Rollyview is all rolling hills and farmland and it was a big ranch: One of the largest Alpaca ranches in Canada.”
Leanne Sept and her sisters, Renee and Marlene, also opened Twisted Sisters & Co. Fibre Mill and Store (TSM) in 2004, where they specialize in processing alpaca fibre. When the fibre is brought to the mill it is washed, dried, picked, de-haired, carded into rovings, and then spun into yarn and plied. They also can blend it with other fibres such as nylon, silk, and merino.
The Twisted Sisters store offers a variety of alpaca yarn as well as finished products such as socks, gloves, sweaters, scarves, duvets, teddy bears, and dog beds, which can now be purchased online. “It’s no small operation. They ship all over the world,” said Wensel. Sunnyhill Alpacas boasts a herd numbering over 100 alpacas, in fact, and the “Sunnyhill” kids have won multiple showing awards since the owners, Leanne and Kevin Sept, began raising Alpacas in the late 1990s.
It is also a tourist destination. Every week knitting groups come in on buses to buy alpaca yarn. However, with the icy Alberta winters, a lot of these visitors were struggling to make it up the steps. “We installed a ramp 24-feet-long with a 4-foot-by-4-foot platform at the top to make it accessible and safer,” Wensel explained. Amramp’s steel-mesh surface allows snow and rain to pass through, making Amramp ramps more suitable for wintery and rainy climates than a wooden or other solid-surface ramp.
The installation was fairly quick, taking only a morning. “I hated to leave, I was enjoying being there so much,” Wensel laughed, “The alpacas were watching me. They didn’t seem bothered by me working away.” The Amramp team, in 45 locations all across North America, is happy to have the alpacas’ stamp of approval!
Amramp is North America’s leading provider of installed wheelchair ramps and accessibility products
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