Park Review

Lakemont Park Altoona, Pennsylvania By Nate Kohlrusch October 7, 2001 (Ridefest) Note: I use the Griswold rating scale of �3 to +5, with 0 being slightly favorable Six strangers...five amusement parks....three days. Sounds like a new reality television show, doesn't it? And in a way it was. There were arguments ("Josh, call your parents so they know we're coming into town"), disappointments (CP, SFWoA, no cheese on a stick), fallen companions (me Sunday morning), exciting times (raving on the coasters), frightening encounters (Beast Lips - "Have you ever ridden Raptor? When's lunch?"), but most importantly, lots and lots of fun. I'll try to keep the inside jokes to a minimum, but you'll just have to bare with me. ;-) The trip started Friday afternoon, when all of us finally got together at Josh's house in Wadsworth, Ohio (near Akron). Four of us had spent the night at Josh's, but "resting up for the trip" didn't happen after spending all night painting "Coaster Con" on some rather expensive ($17!) K-Mart escaped convict costumes. A few of us had met before, but most of us were either complete strangers or had only talked online. But there really wasn't much time to get to know each other, as we painted the last "Coaster Con" costume, packed the van full of all our stuff (and I mean full), and took off towards Cedar Point. The weather was a bit cool, and it was drizzling but nothing that should affect coaster riding. Little did we know nothing other than Iron Dragon, Power Tower, and a few flat rides would open all night. Thanks, Cedar Point. After spending almost three hours at Cedar Point and hardly riding a darned thing because of the "rain" (see my Cedar Point review), we packed back into the car, all of us soaking wet and pissed off. So we were off to Allentown, where we planned to grab a few hours of sleep at a hotel and make it to Dorney Park at 10am. We stayed in a hotel near Dorney, woke up early, and arrived at Dorney right at park opening (see my Dorney Park review), to spend a few hours riding coasters before we had to make the drive to Knoebels for Phoenix Phall Phunphest (PPP). Though it was drizzling early on, the weather soon cleared up and turned into a beautiful autumn afternoon. We took off from Dorney for Knoebels (and Phoenix Phall Phunphest) at about 3pm and got to Knoebels at 5pm or so. We had a great, albeit exhausting, time at Knoebels (see my Knoebels review), and I don�t think any of us slept all-too-well in the freezing cold weather. Who�s idea was it to camp in October? I woke up outside of the sleeping bag, the temperature was about 30 degrees, and I thought I was dead - yes, it was that. So we quickly packed up the tent and climbed into the van. I opted not to shower because I heard the water was just barely colder than the temperature outside (it was probably coming out in ice cubes). I slept the entire way to Lakemont and wasn't very thrilled to be riding coasters when we got there. But tired, cold, and not feeling so great I followed the group into the park. THE PARK: General Impressions. +2.5 This park is very hard to rate. Many of the attractions were packed up or in storage for the winter, so it was hard to tell the condition of these things or even what rides the place had. There aren't many trees in this park, but there's some nice landscaping and green grass throughout. All the rides seemed to be in really good condition with fresh coats of paint. The park installed an antique car ride this year that looks nice, even though you're bombarded with lots of local advertising when riding. The paths are mostly gravel and despite the decent landscaping, Lakemont still felt like a glorified carnival. I still enjoyed the park, however, and was impressed with parts of it (especially the small museum in the Leap the Dips gift shop). For being the eighth oldest amusement park in the United States, Lakemont does not feel old or classic at all. Besides the Skyliner and Leap the Dips, the park just does not have classic or historical rides, which would, in my opinion, be more enjoyable than carnival rides. I don't think this is a place I'd return to often, but I would drop by for a ride or two if I was nearby. We decided to start off with a ride on the Chance Toboggan, which seemed like a bad idea to me, but I went along with it anyway. Jeremy and I opted to grab the last car in the group of four (all three load and unload simultaneously, then the ride cycle begins until all four have completed it once). TOBOGGAN - 1970 Chance Toboggan. +.5 (there's a decimal point in front of that!) I've ridden one other Chance Toboggan, and I was not impressed, mostly because I didn't fit in the car. It was a squeeze, but Jeremy and I fit fairly comfortably and, unlike the one at Little A-Merrick-A, I fit into Lakemont's cars without hitting my head on the ceiling. The ride is a bit hard to explain, but I'll do my best (take a look at the pictures on RCDB for help). The ride starts with a vertical lift inside a large tube. As the car comes out the top, it banks to the left and you go through a long downward spiral (6 helices) around the lift tube. From there, it's a couple of steep drops and you return to the station. I actually almost enjoyed this ride, as it was fairly painless. It's not at all something I would wait in line for or would ride more than once, but a toboggan here and there never hurt anybody. Of course, I'd gladly ride with Jeremy anytime - nothing beats raving on a toboggan. Next, Jeremy, Corey, and I grabbed a ride on the antique cars (Brian may have ridden with us; it's been too long to remember) while George visited the restroom. We then headed over to the Skyliner for a few rides. SKYLINER - 1960 John Allen & PTC double out and back woodie with 3-bench PTC trains. Moved to Lakemont in 1987. +3 This is a really nice coaster, as the paint is bright white and looks nice against the forest behind it. The trains have single position lap bars (yes!) and are very comfortable. The first drop is great, and provides wonderful airtime in the back of the train. There's some noticeable jack hammering at the bottom of this hill, but it's nothing too painful. The second drop (off the turnaround) gives some airtime, too, but those are really the only two points of airtime on the ride. It runs really slow through the last few turns and hills, which could very well be attributed to the cold weather. However, I think there's a major flaw in the design; that is, there's never any airtime hills! It's always drop, incline, turn. If there was ever a moment where the ride threw you up, then down again there could be some wonderful air, but sadly there just isn't. It's still a really nice, fun ride, especially perfect for families and budding enthusiasts. From the Skyliner, we decided it was time to ride the coaster that puts the park on the map - Leap the Dips. Jeremy decided to sit out until we could all ride the wild mouse (which was down), as he wanted Leap the Dips to be his 100th coaster. Josh, however, was ready for his 100th and boarded Leap the Dips with the rest of us. LEAP THE DIPS - 1902 Edward Joy Morris-designed wooden side friction coaster. +4 From what I could tell the ride doesn't (and can't) have trim brakes, so I'm not sure how many four-person cars they ever run. Only one was cycling the course on that day, though, so there was a bit of a line (though it never took more than 10-15 minutes). It would be really hard for me to try to justify or explain my rating of this ride, but I did really enjoy it. It's not thrilling in the least, but I think it's just really fun. The wheels on the sides and bottom of the cars produce a really cool noise when rushing along through the course in and out of the structure. Both this noise and the structure flying by gives you the sense that you are traveling much faster than you really are. I liked the fact that there were no restraints, and there is certainly something to say for riding the world's oldest operating roller coaster. I would recommend that every coaster enthusiast get out and ride this, as a lot of people have worked really hard to restore it and, more recently, keep it in the wonderful condition it is in. We explored the small gift shop museum for a bit, then had some lunch - meatloaf and scalloped potatoes - which I thought was odd for an enthusiast event. Isn't there some unwritten rule that events must serve pizza and only pizza? :-) We heard that it was too cold to run the wild mouse, but after lunch we found that it was, in fact, running so we grabbed a ride. MAD MOUSE - 1965 Herschell wild mouse (moved to Lakemont in 1989). +1 This is one wicked little wild mouse. The park has done away with the large entrance sign you'll see on RCDB and replaced it with a much smaller one, which does look nicer because they've added flowers around the outside. The zig-zag turns on this are much more fun than on other mice because the cars seat only one. A few of the curves are downright violent and bang loudly, but they're not very jolting or painful when you're actually riding. The dips at the end, though, are not pleasant (but that's how I feel about most wild mice). To me, wild mice are so...blah. Anyway, we grabbed another ride on Leap the Dips, a few more on Skyliner, investigated "Beast Lips," the new B&M looper being built in 2002 (no, really!) and then headed out for a long drive back to Ohio. All together, it was a fantastic trip, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of guys to spend the time with. Beware....a reunion in 2002 is coming. ;-) In closing, I must thank Lakemont for the hospitality and for hosting this event � the park did a great job. Thanks to George and Brian for doing the driving during the trip, as we would have been screwed without you. Thanks to Josh (and parents) for the place to stay Thursday and Sunday nights. ...and thanks to all five of you (Josh, Jeremy, Brian, George, and Corey) for a great time. See ya' next year! -Nate The above park review, and all other reviews contained on this site, are property of Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Geocities and their respective owners. See Yahoo's Copyright Policy for more information.

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