Hades is OPEN!

[Guest]

Well my friend called the park and guess what Hades is open all this weekend...anyone close should go get some rides in!

 

Katie

[edboxer]

Hades Review posted on Rollercoastertalk:

 

Hello to all!

 

Some of you may know I rejoined the list about a month ago with few

intentions of posting. However, I got a chance to ride Hades today,

and I thought I'd give this list the privilege reading one of (if not

the first) reviews of the ride online...as well as my fantastic

writing. I'm glad to see this list is still flourishing, and

although I haven't decided on whether or not I will become "active" on

here again, I'll be happy to answer Hades questions for anyone who has

them.

 

Anyway, here's what I assume you're reading for:

 

 

HADES (2005 Gravity Group freeform wooden coaster with PTC Trains)

Mt. Olympus Theme & Water Park

Wisconsin Dells, WI

 

Mt. Olympus (formerly Big Chief) has been open randomly for the past

month or so. Chris and I visited back in April and took a ride on

Zeus, which was running even better than previous years, but that was

the only coaster running at the time. To be honest, Hades looked

rather far from finished, especially the station and the fact that the

train was still missing. I figured the park would be able to hit its

target Memorial Day Weekend for opening Hades, but I don't think I

expected the ride would open a full two weeks early. Upon getting

confirmation last weekend that the ride was indeed testing, however, I

called early this morning (Saturday) to find out if there was a new

scheduled opening date for Hades. Surprisingly enough, she told me

that Hades was "open right now," so a friend and I threw together a

random trip to the Dells after a quick lunch.

 

I've watched the construction of this ride over the past year and a

half, yet seeing it in person never fails to impress me. The ride is

huge - not only in length, but height as well. It literally towers

over everything else in the park. The first drop is over Zeus, and

it's quite intimidating to see how large this new ride is compared to

the park's former giant.

 

Mt. Olympus has a bizarre pricing system. It's actually always fun to

see what the pricing system of the day will be, as I'm not sure it's

ever been the same on any of my several visits over the last two

years. Today, they were charging $32 for a ride all day pass,

including the indoor waterpark. From what I could tell, all of the

coasters and most of the go-karts were open, so this wasn't a

particularly bad deal. However, we were a bit pressed for time, and

opted instead to purchase individual ride tickets. For this, they

were charging $6 for a "Spectator's Wristband", with individual rides

being $4 each on top of this. However, the park is not really gated,

so there isn't much stopping you from entering without paying the $6

"Spectator's Pass." I'm not condoning that; I'm just making an

observation.

 

We purchased our tickets and immediately headed to Hades. The weather

for the past week here has been sporadic, to say the least, and all

day it was alternating between sunny and warm, and rainy and cold. We

wanted to ride before the weather turned sour, but we ended up taking

both of our rides in a fairly light drizzle. It wasn't pouring in any

sense, but the drizzle combined with the speed of the ride got me very

wet, and very cold. Thus, understand that my observations of the ride

are based on poor weather conditions and on the ride's first day of

real operation. It will be interesting to see how Hades rides on a

hot summer night. For now, however, my observations are based on

these less-than-ideal conditions.

 

One pet peeve I (and others) have about Mt. Olympus is some of their

disregard of standard safety practices. I can overlook the lapbar

procedures (although notably enough, they were certainly checking

lapbars today). However, on previous visits Chris and I have been

concerned that the drops into the tunnel would remain open, without a

lock-out fence. Thankfully, today there was a chain-link fence

surrounding the first drop area. The low points in the turn around

are still not gated, however, and even though the parking lot no

longer exists near this area (this was torn up sometime in the past

couple of weeks), there should be a fence here.

 

The "queue" for Hades feels nearly as long as the ride itself. It's

rare, but I have seen Mt. Olympus with rather significant waits for

their coasters. Given the fact that Hades is a long ride and only

runs one train, it's nice that they planned for this. However, on

normal days I wouldn't ever expect more than a 2-3 train wait, and

it's a long way to walk to the station, much of it uphill.

Thankfully, this means that the stairway into the station isn't as

long as the one for Zeus, but it's still a climb. I nearly felt out

of breath when we finally made it into the station.

 

It's not often that I find myself nervous about trying new rides, but

Hades had me plenty worried. Some of the pictures of the "speed

bumps" and other track features in the tunnel that have shown up on

the Internet the past few weeks have been downright terrifying,

especially considering we were going to be flying through them at 60+

MPH. The station was mostly full when we got to the top of the steps,

but the back row was open and we chose to ride here first. Our second

ride was in the second row of the front car.

 

The ride begins immediately with a fairly large, steep, straight drop

out of the station. This does nothing in the front, but there's

surprisingly strong airtime here in the back. The train then

navigates a rather large figure-8, hitting several hills on the way.

There is a pretty wicked double dip here, and though the airtime is

brief, it's very forceful. There is also one of my favorite hills on

the ride, where the track curves up to the right, then quickly swoops

down to the left. There's a nice pop of airtime here while changing

directions, all of which happens under the ride's structure (with some

nice head choppers). Then you finally reach the lift.

 

The lift is *long*, but the chain moves pretty fast. The first drop

is supposedly the steepest wooden coaster drop in the country.

There's a nice sense of speed in the front going down the drop, but

the real treat is in the back seat, where there's pretty strong

airtime the whole way down. Then it's quickly into the 700' long

tunnel.

 

There is really no way to describe everything that happens in the

tunnel without referencing many pictures, and without riding many more

times. The tunnel is essentially shaped like a question mark, with

the first entry to the tunnel on the bottom. After traveling straight

(and over a couple small hills) for a bit, there is a slight s-curve

to the right. The train travels straight once again, hitting more

hops and dips before taking a sharp left-hand turn, which is

apparently banked at 90 degrees. To be honest, I wouldn't have even

known that turn was banked so sharply if I hadn't seen pictures of it.

The turn happens very quickly, and even though there is a sense of

the train tipping to the left, it doesn't feel as significant as it

obviously is. The sensation of banking is much more exaggerated if

you sit on the right-hand side of the train, as then you're on the

"high end" of the curve. I'd recommend sitting on this side of the

train if you want the full effect.

 

After the 90* turn, the train hits an extremely abrupt double-up

before navigating a long, curving climb to the left and out of the

tunnel. I've ridden other coasters with double-ups (Comet, Phoenix)

and to be honest, these elements have never really done anything for

me. However, the double-up on Hades is much shorter, and taken at a

much faster speed. It's probably the most intense moment of the ride,

especially as it occurs immediately following the steep curve. The

whole "out" portion of the tunnel takes only about eight seconds, and

the entire thing is flat-out intense. Part of this is the fact that

the tunnel is so dark that it's impossible to see anything in front of

you, even as you're nearing the end of it. Another part of this

intensity comes from how loud the tunnel is, as the thunderous roar of

the train echoes throughout the entire concrete tunnel (though it's

not quite as loud as certain people who felt they needed ear plugs

thought it would be). There isn't a single moment of "dead time" or

straight track in entire tunnel. There are dips, hops, hills, and

turns throughout the entire length of the tunnel going both ways.

Perhaps needless to say, this was overwhelmingly my favorite part of

the ride. I went in fearing what was going to happen in the tunnel

and ended up absolutely loving every moment of it. I do think it

could become a problem in a few years if maintenance isn't kept up to

speed on it, though perhaps being indoors will help somewhat.

 

Anyway, this curving rise out of the tunnel is the beginning of the

turnaround, which is located in the middle of the parking lot. The

train nearly comes to a dead stop at the top of this hill, which I'm

sure will change as it continues to break in. For now, there's a

quick moment to catch your breath before entering a long, downward

spiral to the right. Once you reach the bottom, it's up and into a

wonderful airtime hill, which is already proving nearly standing air.

This hill drops back into the tunnel, then immediately hits a curve to

the right, which isn't nearly as steep or sharp as the curve it

travels alongside.

 

As I said above, the "back" portion of the tunnel is as eventful as

the "out" portion. It parallels the other track the whole way, but it

doesn't do the same thing. Again, I couldn't tell you everything it

does, other than by saying it jumps around a lot, hitting several

hills and dips. Once again, it's incredibly thrilling.

 

Many have raved about how great the hill out of the tunnel

(paralleling the first drop) looks, but as of now the train barely

makes it over. Again, I'm sure this will change with time, but I'm

not sure it will ever be the hill some dreamed it would be. Still,

though there's really nothing noteworthy about this hill in the front,

in the back there's a nice pullover and float down a surprisingly long

drop back into the wooded valley. Then it's up into another hill,

which levels out at the top alongside the station before swooping down

to the right. While still completing this wide right-hand turn the

train navigates another hill, passing back under the lift. Then the

train enters a sharp, steeply-banked 270* helix upward into the

brakes. Both of the last two hills (at the start of and during the

wide right-hand turn) are very good, giving nice amounts of airtime,

especially in the back. The helix into the brakes is decent. It's

not overly intense and it sputters out at the end, but again this may

change as the ride warms up. After the brakes there's a short, steep

dip into the station and the ride is complete.

 

Hades is, in my opinion, a back seat ride. There's really no moment

that stood out for me in the front seat that wasn't better in the

back. As I said earlier, the tunnel was by far the greatest part of

the ride, followed by the two hills near the end of the ride. Nearly

everything before the lift struck me as rather stupid, and I found

myself just wanting to get to the lift. I also thought the stuff

before the lift banged around much more than the rest of the ride,

especially the double dip and the turn afterward. Though this is

probably the slowest part of the ride, I now think this could become

the roughest part, as the train seems to have some difficulty

navigating it. I was also struck by how very long the ride is. I

knew it was big coming into it, but I didn't expect the ride to feel

as long as it does. Honestly, it felt like the ride just kept going

and going. It reminded me of the Legend in the way it felt like it

was never going to end (in a good way). It doesn't hit the brakes

with as much speed and power as the Legend, but that may come with

time.

 

It's difficult to "rate" Hades based on two rides on opening day. At

this point I probably still slightly prefer Avalanche, but I could see

that changing over the summer as I get more and more rides in. I'd

probably put it at number six or seven on my top ten list right now,

which means it would sit along Avalanche, Comet, and Boulder Dash.

I'm excited to see how this will change over the summer, though. When

I took my first ride on Avalanche the day it opened last year, I

thought it was fun but slow. By the end of the summer, Avalanche had

turned into probably the most intense wooden coaster I've ridden. If

this happens to Hades, I am both excited and a little nervous.

 

Ten years ago there wasn't a single wooden roller coaster in

Wisconsin. Now, Wisconsin Dells has as many wooden roller coasters as

any on the planet, including at least two top ten rides. To have

Avalanche and Hades open back to back is absolutely amazing, and I'm

not sure I can think of a more exciting place to live (coaster-wise)

right now. For those keeping track at home, Wisconsin Dells also has

more holes of mini-golf, more waterparks, more go-kart tracks, and

more water slides than any other city in the country, possibly the

world. By the end of the summer the area will be home to three (!!)

Proslide Tornados.

 

Many call the Dells touristy, tacky, and pricey. It is indeed all

three, but I can't help but love the place. I love the bombardment of

bright colored advertisements and giant concrete sculptures. I love

the waterparks shaped like a mountain of cotton candy and the somewhat

odd negotiation between commerce and nature in the Dells. But really

most of all, I love Hades and Avalanche. Thank God summer is finally

here. I will be back soon.

 

 

PS: For those traveling to the Dells, Avalanche is not yet open for

the season. They're doing some "theming" work along the ride

(bridges, waterfalls, and oddly enough, trees with concrete faces)

and, I assume, replacing the mini-golf courses that used to be in the

ride's infield. I think it will look nice when it's done. Also, the

new Triton's Tower (waterslide complex) at Mt. Olympus is not yet

finished, but looks extremely impressive. I have no doubt they will

have a fantastic year.

 

-Nate

coasterdue318@gmail.com

 

 

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[Marko]

Excellent trip report - thank you! It will be interesting to see what kind of press this coaster gets in the various markets, Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities. Just a little over a week and we'll find out! Wish I still had health club membership, I'd spend the next week on the stairmaster getting in shape.

[SharkTums]

Ok, well I'll be booking my tickets for my dells trip this week!

 

I'm glad though that we decided to go at the end of the summer to give this ride some time to 'break in'. Interesting to read that the first part was 'kind of rough'. I'm hoping that some of the GG guys stay around tweaking and fixing some patches these first few weeks.

 

Elissa "August should be fun!" Alvey

[Jeezus Juice]

^ When are you guys planning on going? We'll be there in August as well. We can take over a Steak and Shake!

 

I can't wait to hear how it breaks in over the summer. I'm glad to hear that there are +Gs on the 90* bank. I was getting nervous about doing a wall ride on a coaster.

 

Was Familyland right next door to Big Cheifs? I'm having a hard time pictureing the new superpark layout. Did they keep the lower parking lot?

 

-Don

[DancingDays]

Well, I've been planning on making the 2 1/2 hr drive to the Dells with some friends for a while now, and after hearing how great Avalanche is supposed to be, and this favorable review of Hades, I'll be sure to make it up to WI at least once.

[edboxer]

PLEASE NOTE - the review posted is by Nate - coasterdue318@gmail.com, not me! I simply copied and pasted his review into the replay.