zachclarke2

Coasterdynamix has been out of the park for several years now. Not sure what's going on with the company but they very rarely have anything in stock, and when they do it's all gone extremely fast. Either Busch didn't renew their order for the trains or CD discontinued their shipments to the park, but regardless they are not there anymore. The only ones I've seen recently in any parks are the I305 trains at KD, and I believe Cedar Point still carries them for Millennium and Maverick (Dragster, Raptor, and Gatekeeper have all been discontinued to my knowledge). Jack from Coasterdynamix has a forum account on here but I'm doubtful he'll see this post or respond.

^Good thing Apollo is closed.

Some photos of the new Pasta coaster. It looks like supports have started going up for the two main tower structures, as well as the building foundation and station/launch track.

New floorless model. The first one, actually. The beginning is Mantis/Green Lantern inspired but it kind of meanders at the end. I'm satisfied with it overall. I've already got the next model made, but it'll be at least a few days before it's posted.

Thanks! It's definitely been over a day but school has been consuming me. Sorry. Here's the video:

It's been a while. Here's a new model - I was originally going to recreate Oziris but realized fairly quickly I wasn't going to have enough materials. So instead I went for an Oziris inspired/modern-ish B&M invert. It has a vertical loop, dive loop, helix and an inline roll. I'll have a video up within the next day. I tried to more or less recreate Oziris's drop and I'm satisfied with the result. The loop looks horribly misshapen from this angle. Oops. The roll is my favorite part of the ride. Overall view.

Time to finish the thread I guess. Here's the last batch of pictures. The final turn has a surprising amount of lateral force. I killed my knee on the first ride. The little touches like this in the queue line are great. Barnstormer is the park's S&S swing. It only ran one side at a time all week, but the side that they ran alternated each day. I assume running one side at a time saves a massive amount of energy, and it really didn't matter because the ride didn't have a line all week. I didn't ride the ferris wheel. I hate these small 'fair' ones. Interesting trains. Poor topple tower. I guess it wasn't busy enough, because whenever I requested a certain row they gave it to me. My new favorite part of any coaster ever. This finale is seriously amazeballs. I imagine this area will look even nicer when the wild flowers take it over. The front row expressions more or less match what mine was on my first ride. The final hill into the break run provided some admittedly terrifyingly sudden ejector airtime. The tree blocks the loop. It's hard to get a picture of it that really shows how massive it is. The banking of the loop is a bit strange in that there's lateral forces in the entry and exit. There's great hangtime at the top as well. On my depressing final walk to the park exit I grabbed one more photo of the statue. And one of Mystery Mine. That's it for my TR. Thanks for reading.

Sorry about the lack of update, I've been busy with the first week of school. I filmed 2 more videos on day 4 (be sure to watch in HD): And here's pictures from day 4: I must say I do believe GCI makes the most elegant looking rides. These fan turns are especially beautifully crafted. I never stopped to listen to what the vulture was saying, but many people seemed to be amused by it. Line? What line? I hate all the stairs on Mystery Mine, but the view from the top of them is pretty nice. Doesn't this park know how to maintain a building? Wild Eagle's entrance area is one of the most gorgeous I've ever seen. The entire ride is about flawless if you ask me. There's a good view of Firechaser from the station. Passing Firechaser Express... Firechaser can be seen from Tornado's queue as well. Lots of Tornado pictures in the next set. I guarantee it. The eagle statue is beautiful in every aspect. I couldn't seem to get over how huge it was; it's much larger in person than it looks in photos. One of my favorite pictures from the trip. The lift hill is the only part of the ride visible from the entrance, but most of the layout is visible with some searching (Slidewinder queue for example). Back at Mystery Mine to film some video (above). Lines were pretty horrendous throughout the trip. Even the queue is well themed. Next update will be the last. Thanks for looking.

Pretty uneventful pass member presentation. A few notes: -Monster Stomp will be returning. It's in the Globe Theater and will be called 'Monster Stomp on Ripper Row.' It features Jack the Ripper. -Fiends is back in Ireland. -Globe Theater will house a new show featuring Scrooge during Christmas Town. He didn't release any details about it. -Not even a mention of the new ride. When I asked Carl about it afterwards he replied "What coaster?", so clearly they're not ready to give out any official info yet. -They were selling food items in the Festhaus that will apparently be released next year, but I didn't see what they had available. "Raise your hands in the air if you want some information on the new coaster! Sucks to suck!" A-ha!

I have some pictures of the Diavolo/Tempesto/Pasta/whatever construction I got later last week. I went again today, but the only noticeable differences I saw were the tree stumps had been removed and the Deere was digging a rectangle hole; for what I am not sure. A couple of new Apollo views were opened up by the removal of the trees. Apollo's queue got that wonderful decorative dark green mesh that has accompanied the bumper car line for 3 years now. Hopefully this will be temporary, however. I believe the mesh in Oktoberfest is meant to more or less block Verbolten's show house, which imo is one of the ugliest structures in the park, if not the ugliest. All of these tree stumps have since been removed.

^^&^^^ Thanks! Ober definitely felt European and even a bit outdated, and there was hardly anything to do. However whenever I do get back to the area I see myself returning for the alpine coaster. Nothing more though. ^I use a Nikon D3100. I hope to upgrade the body within the next few months but it's a great camera. Does what it should and doesn't complain about it. Long exposure pictures are some of my favorites to shoot, I can change the shutter even just a little and sometimes get wildly different results. It's fun to play around with. I'll probably upload what pictures I have left sometime within the next 2 or 3 days or so.

Thanks, probably my favorite part of filming woodies with a tripod is that it really shows how much the structure sways when a train passes.

No love for Ober Gatlinburg? Alrighty then, later that day I went to Dollywood if you can believe it. In addition to the photographs, I managed to create offride videos of Thunderhead and Firechaser Express. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but they are very well shot and worth a watch. Be sure to watch in HD. Back in the park for day 3. I must say the entrance looks very nice, the greenery everywhere really makes it much more beautiful than it already is. This is where people go...to get season passes?? (make up your own captions) I have no idea what 180 means. It's apparent that the park puts major effort into theming the ride stations. They all looked fabulous. The ride was only running one train, so filming was a bit slower than I'd hoped for. But with the great ops at the park, it really didn't take that long. Unfortunately nearby lightning caused all the rides to temporarily shut down when I only needed about 3 more Thunderhead shots. So I walked back to Firechaser, the other coaster I intended on filming. I'm not sure of the significance of "number 3." This firetruck was a real nice touch, however. Everything around the ride was a real nice touch. It would be about 30 minutes before anything reopened, so I tried to improvise. I must say the trains for this ride look amazing. Not unlike every other coaster train at the park. Well, maybe not Sideshow Spin, however that one is interesting. I love how they re-purposed some of the Adventure Mountain towers. It would be cool to go up into one to take pictures of the ride. If you're unsure about fitting on the ride, PLEASE use this first!!! I'm not sure if I recall any walks of shame on Firechaser, but there were /tons/ on Mystery Mine and it /really/ slowed the dispatch times. Finally the ride reopened. This launch may not look like much, but it has some force and is actually a lot of fun. The backwards launch feels a bit more intense than this one. Another one of the towers ended up being used for a ride plaza entrance structure. The coaster travels through it as well, but that should be obvious. Notice the zipliner towards the left of the photo. After I finished filming Firechaser, I went back and got what I needed of Thunderhead, then rode for an hour before leaving. Thanks for reading.

^Thanks! On Monday morning I went to Ober Gatlinburg. There are no coasters, as it's a mountain ski resort. According to the brochure I got however, they are apparently opening an alpine coaster in the fall. I didn't see any construction so I'm not sure where it's being built. Unlike most parks, this one allows you to take a cable tram to the top. You can drive there as well, I believe, but I can't imagine that being nearly as interesting. I've been on one of these in Vancouver before so it wasn't frightening for me at all. It's a very smooth ride actually. The swinging when you cross the towers just makes it more fun. The park is very small. There's only a few rides. Among them: an alpine slide, several chairlifts, a maze, a kiddie motorcycle ride, and a few water raft slides. Everything was fairly expensive, so I could only justify riding the alpine slide. Aside from the rides, there were a few ski slopes, and a mall type area with an ice skating rink. Not a lot of the shops were open, but I did end up buying a shirt and postcards from their general merchandise store. The alpine slide was unfortunately not everything I hoped it would be. No seatback on the sled was fairly uncomfortable with me being 6'2. I could feel every piece of concrete with intense bumps. My pov of the slide was useless more or less for that reason. However, since I was the first person to ride when it opened, there was no one in front slowing me down. The slide goes pretty fast (it feels fast, at least) and there were moments I was legitimately concerned about flipping off the track. On to the pictures: The tram stop at the bottom. And this is at the top. I only saw one person on the rink while I was there. I saw at least a couple decent wipeouts. This is the first thing you see when you exit the mall into the park. It looked like fun, but I didn't ride. Also, I'm not sure if it's noticeable in the picture, but the ride uses an elevator lift system to transport the rafts to the top, as opposed to a conveyor belt lift. The alpine slide wouldn't be opening until about 45 minutes after we arrived, so I strolled in and out of the mall a couple of times in search for things to photograph. You have to take this lift to get to the alpine slide. Guests are given the option to get off halfway and take the slide down, or ride all the way to the top and then take the lift down. My uncle rode to the top and told me there was an 'alright bluegrass band'. There were a few other chairlifts at the park but I assume those only run in the winter. Around the corner and down the hill from the chairlift platform is a blacktop with a kiddie motorcycles and 2 water rides. The exit for the alpine slide is also down there. Most of the slide was visible from the lift. The view from the top tram station. I apologize for not having any pictures of the trams in action...it seems I didn't quite have the patience at the time. This is from the Gatlinburg (ground) station. The park sign and what I can only assume is one of the old tram cars. Thanks for looking! It's all Dollywood pictures through the end of the report.

There are more people complaining about the people complaining about the ride than there are people complaining about the ride.

Thanks! Sunday afternoon, during a gap in the rain, I decided to go back to Dollywood for a couple of hours before dinner in hopes of getting some video. Sucks for me, all of the rides were closed due to lightning. For lack of something better to do, I decided to go towards the back of the park and take some pictures of Wild Eagle's station. I'm glad I did, because after a few minutes of walking around the station, the ride crew let me on to the platform to chat and take some pictures. I didn't have a lot of time there, but I managed to talk to some of the crew and get a few pictures. I was having facts and ride stats thrown at me nonstop it seemed. Almost all of the trains' electronic aspects were explained to me in depth, but admittedly I don't remember most of them. I may have only been in the park for a little over an hour, and I may have not gotten any of the things I went for, but I would definitely say it was more than worth my visit. Of course, my luck, rides would be opening at pretty much the exact instant I had to leave. Oh well. I'd still have another 3 days at the park anyway, so who am I to complain? I have no idea if any of the crew will ever read this, but I want to thank them for being so kind and hospitable. Here's my pictures. The quality isn't quite as good as some of the others I've posted, but they aren't too bad. Wild Eagle's station has got to be the most elegant and beautiful rollercoaster station I've ever seen. I should have a few more pictures of it later in the report... I was told all about these electronics. Unfortunately I don't remember enough to thoroughly explain it again. Sorry about that. It's interesting how the track of a wing coaster more or less just sits on the platform in the station, as opposed to being beneath it. Obviously this is because the track and seats are level with each other. Thanks for reading, next update will be Ober Gatlinburg.

^ I personally would consider them credits because they have a lift, are gravity powered, and are on a track. But obviously it's totally up to the individual person. I can see why someone wouldn't count it. I wouldn't consider an alpine slide a credit, for what that's worth.

Sunday morning had a pretty significant downpour, with occasional breaks. We decided to go to the Muscle Car museum and Knifeworks as they were indoor and away from the rain. The Muscle Car museum was interesting and had a ton of displays, while Knifeworks may not have been the best thing to go do. It seems reasonable enough to realize I don't fit in with the 'knife and gun' crowd, so I'm honestly not sure why I thought it was a good idea. After lunch, the rain more or less cleared, so we went to check out the new Smokey Mountain Alpine Coaster. It's only about a 10 minute drive west of Dollywood. It's moderately expensive ($15 for a single ride), as it's a standalone attraction. The line was about 25 minutes for my first ride and a little shorter for the second. I added it to my credit list. Hate me. It was a lot of fun actually, there's a big sense of out-of-control feeling that you don't get on larger coasters, despite the fact you never go above 30 mph. It's built on the side of the mountain so the track rarely gets above 10 or so feet off the ground. It's a ton of fun, I enjoyed myself immensely, and feel like I got my money's worth (shocking). My only peeve with the ride is that it's not idiot proof, so occasionally there will be someone who slows down to almost a stop. My uncle was caught behind one of those people on the first run, and he seemed fairly upset about it. Luckily neither of us had that problem on the second ride. I hope more of these start appearing in the states. The fact that there are already 3 more planned to open in that area by next year is really promising (Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and Ober Gatlinburg). There's one at Wisp Resort in Maryland that I'll pass if I make my way to CP next year, so if I head up I'll definitely stop. Here's a (mounted!) POV I got of my first ride, with permission of course. Sorry about the raindrops on the lens, but on my second ride it was raining a bit harder and my footage was just useless. Be sure to watch in HD: This is more or less all you could see of it from the ground. It's the only picture I got because it started to rain and I didn't want to get my camera wet. Sorry!

Thank you! It's a fantastic park that needs to be visited by every enthusiast at least once. I'm already planning on going back next year around winter time, actually. I would love to see your pictures of the park, you take great ones! I'm not sure they would be able to do anything with them, but thanks for the compliment. I 100% agree with all this. I had high hopes and I was blown away in every single way possible. Thank you! I don't keep a top 10 anymore, but I'm torn on whether or not Mystery Mine would be in it. However, I wouldn't be lying if I said all 5 of the bigger coasters would be in my top 25 (or so, idk). Thanks, you should definitely visit. Like, right now. Go. I personally liked the park a lot more than Holiday World, but that's just from a 'park' standpoint, if that makes any sense at all. I have yet to attend Holiwood Nights but if I did I imagine I would have a much higher opinion of the park.

Ok, thanks! lol what lines? Everything was pretty much a walkon besides Firechaser and Mystery Mine on Saturday and Wednesday. Wednesday was the only day all week that had a decent forecast. Here's my ride count if anyone cares: Thunderhead - 7 rides Mystery Mine - 10 rides Firechaser Express - 7 rides Wild Eagle - 13 rides Tennessee Tornado - 12 rides Blazing Fury - 2 rides Sideshow Spin - 1 ride I could have gotten a lot more (probably triple that), but I spent a lot of time taking photos and video and just relaxing/enjoying the park atmosphere.

Thank you! Your excitement is justified, it's a fantastic park! Thanks! Mystery Mine ended up being my favorite ride in the park, but admittedly all 5 of the 'big' coasters were amazing. And yes I did ride the alpine coaster, that'll be in my next post. Thanks, I love it too. That day, we left Dollywood about 30 minutes after closing and went to the Island to get some pictures of the ferris wheel. From what I understand, the Island is a new establishment, as there was tons of construction going on around the place. I ended up only getting pictures of the ferris wheel aside from eating dinner due to low time. I went back later in the week, but didn't bring my camera along because of the threatening looking skies. So these are the only pictures I have from here, sadly. For higher quality versions of these, take a look here. Unfortunately for us, Ole Smokey Moonshine was still under construction. Even more unfortunate, it totally ruined this view. But I suppose it looks nice enough to post. Every 30 minutes, the fountain will 'dance' to a song. I forget what song it was playing when I took the photo. Something by Tom Petty maybe, but I have no idea. Edit: I was "kindly" reminded that the song playing was Jump by Van Halen. I apologize for screwing that up. Won't happen again. Ok Alex? The ferris wheel is the same as Capital Wheel at National Harbor (Chance), but this one was running a different lighting program. The changing color patterns combined with the movement of the wheel definitely makes for some cool photos. It's a small set of pictures today. Thanks for looking!

Day 1 Dollywood The Island Day 2 Smokey Mountain Alpine Coaster Dollywood Day 3 Ober Gatlinburg Dollywood ---------- Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Pigeon Forge for the very first time. I was there from Saturday to Wednesday, and somehow I managed to get into Dollywood every single day of the trip. I also visited Ober Gatlinburg, The Island, and a few other things. I'm pretty terrible at story telling and captions but I hope the quality of my photographs more or less makes up for that. On Saturday, I went to Dollywood for the first time in my life. I was able to meet up with one of my best enthusiast friends Alex (wildstangalex) and it was no doubt a fantastic day. The crowds were very light due to a crappy weather forecast, but it didn't rain a drop on us. We bought the q-bots in advance just to be safe, but only ended up using it 4 times (2 on Firechaser/2 on Mine). Not a big loss though, since we did end up using it to bypass a few lines, and it was only $20 anyway. Overall, every ride at the park ended up exceeding my expectations. The "big 5" is probably one of the best coaster lineups of any park I've ever been to. Here's some thoughts I have on them: Thunderhead - Incredibly smooth for the first 2 rides, brutal for the rest of the week (in both trains). Easily my favorite GCI with the long layout and tons of airtime. Mystery Mine - Holy balls airtime on the first steep drop. There were a couple of 'banger moments', but overall I didn't find the ride 'rough'. The dark show elements complimented the ride perfectly in my opinion, and the finale is my new favorite element combo on any coaster. Firechaser Express - I liked this ride much more than Verbolten. It's tame enough to be extremely family friendly, but has enough going for it to be tons of fun. The event building combined with the reverse launch was extremely clever. The radio calls coming from the firetruck was a detail I didn't notice until later in the week; the park is full of things like that. Wild Eagle - I was expecting a slightly-better-than-Gatekeeper-wingrider, but I actually really enjoyed it. Dare I say I like Wild Eagle more than Kumba. The ride is beautiful, the theming is beautiful, there's some decent forces in the ride, there's hangtime, and even some floater airtime. Tennessee Tornado - Arrow really did find Jesus while designing this one. And by Jesus, of course I mean Alan Schilke. The layout is perfect. It's not too long, but long enough to be amazing. The first drop has great airtime in the back row. The final hill into the brake run had absolutely terrifying 'surprise!' artime in the front row. This is most likely my favorite traditional looper. Again, better than Kumba. Much better, honestly. Anyway, here's my pictures from day 1 (Saturday). Hope you guys enjoy them. There's not a lot of coaster pictures in this batch, but there will be a lot more later. For higher quality versions of these, feel free to view them here. One of my favorite things about this park is the employees. They have personalities. Everyone working there just seemed to be so happy and enthusiastic about their job. It was a nice switch of pace from BGW, that's for sure. We shamelessly collected this one. Credit, one and done. The train nerd in me was very excited about this. There isn't much of a 'view' from the train, but a cool ride through part of the Smokies. Needless to say I was covered in soot afterwards. We got cinnamon bread from the Grist Mill. It was good. Very good, as a matter of fact. It's probably worth saying that this train absolutely hauls through the track. Wild Eagle through the trees. I understand the need for that wooden structure at the bottom left of the picture, but I can't say it was as photogenic as the coaster. Wild Eagle really is a beautiful ride. Much more so than Gatekeeper, in my opinion. Blazing Fury was interesting. Not something I'd wait in a long line for. The back row had some unfortunately painful airtime on the drops. More pictures of Firechaser are coming, I promise. Kids in the front row heiling Hitler for the camera. Classy. Mystery Mine really is a very brilliant ride. More photos of this will be coming as well. Hah, look at that nerd. The layout is just full of airtime. Nothing too intense, but a whole lot of it. One more picture of the Grist Mill to close the set. Thanks for looking! Lots more pictures coming soon!

Thanks guys. About that hill into the brakes, I'd definitely say it was the most violent and surprising part of the ride. The combined vertical and horizontal forces were just whoa. I got a few different shots of that part of the track and every single one of them has at least a few noteworthy facial reactions.

Some pictures from my visit to the park last week:

Some recent stuff of mine from BGW: