Silverwood Theme Park
Athol, Idaho
By Ryan Snooks
July 8, 2001
Silverwood +3.5:
My mom and I got to Silverwood on the 8th at around 1 pm
and bought our tickets. This park has some trees and scenery, but not much
for theming. All the lines were extremely short; the longest was for the
very back of Tremors, which was about 20 or 30 minutes. The staff
was okay. The park has a good variety of flat rides and two good CCIs.
They could use a good B&M looper and a hyper; they own a ton of land that
they can still develop. I started out by heading toward Timber Terror and
Tremors, but passed Corkscrew so I went on that twice.
The Corkscrew: +1.5
This is the first of the Arrow corkscrew
roller coasters. I rode this one first near the back and then in the very
front. It was a walk-on for most of the seats except for the front and
very back. My reasoning for the rating is that it was actually pretty
smooth, there was just a little shoulder banging, and it is historical
(first modern inversion). However, it is extremely short, but at least it
had some inversions. The main thing that made me give it a low score was
the shortness, but it was a prototype so it was understandable on that
one. After that, we went to the bathroom and then I went to Tremors.
Tremors +4.5:
I went for the back, and ended up in the front seat of the back car since someone else was riding alone. The ride
had a problem so we had to wait a bit, but then they finally got it running. The ride starts with a
small dive and a turn to the left out of the station and up the lift,
which is about 100 feet tall. At the top, the train does a small dive/turnaround,
kinda� like a miniature CCI swoop turn, and then you fly down the first drop
that's a little taller than the lift because it dives underground. The train files up out of the gift shop wall to a small airtime-filled hill and
then into another tunnel. From that point on everything is a blur, but eventually you go into a helix, I
think, and then a few hills with some headchoppers. There�s another helix before the run back to the station, followed by a few bunny hops, a dive
into yet another tunnel, where your picture is taken. Next is another small hill and a dive into the last tunnel. Once exit the tunnel, the train makes some turns, followed by the brakes and then
the station. It was a great ride with four tunnels, two or three helices, lots of
hills, loads of head choppers, and a least four spots of good airtime. It's
probably my second favorite woodie, right behind Ghostrider, which I
still consider the perfect woodie. After that I wandered over to Timber
Terror, a CCI out and back.
Timber Terror: +4.2
I think on my first ride I was in the very
back, but I'm not for sure. Were those G-Trains or PTCs? I know Tremors has
PTCs, but Timber Terror had what I think was a buzz bar for every two
seats that doesn't go down very far. You definitely need the seatbelt on
this one. The beginning of this ride is similar to Tremors with a dive
out of the station into a small turn and up the lift. The lift is a
little smaller than Tremors, and the first drop is quite a bit smaller.
Its max speed is 55 mph while Tremors is 60. Anyway, at the top of the lift lift, the train makes a turn and zips down the first drop. Following this are about two airtime-filled hills. After this, you begin to go up another, but as you start
to go down, the train quickly goes back up and then down. I think that would have been
better if you didn't go up again and just finished the drop because it
kind of ruined the airtime, but at least you got some positive Gs. After
that odd drop, you enter a ground-hugging swoop turn helix and up a hill
into what I think might have been trim brakes. Next, the train decends into a few
bunny hops with good head choppers. After that comes the best helix
I've been experienced on a woodie. The beginning of the helix isn't really banked
at all so you get awesome lats, then comes your standard high G
helix. After that, you go up into a hill with a turn, so you get some good
airtime and lats at the same time. Then you hit the brakes. The actual ride was as good as Tremors, but Tremors had the
tunnels so it scored better. Timber Terror didn't have much in theming
except for the logo, but I don't think they could really decide on one
because when you enter the station there's a bear statue above the
doorway (I think it was a bear, it might have been a wolf) that says
"Timber Terror". On the train they have a weird logo with two eyes
bursting out of something and the logo they have on their website and
everywhere else is a tree monster thing eating timber. If anyone can
clear up why they have three very logos, that would be nice.
Tremors had a "little" theming; the station is kind of abstract
as if three was an earthquake (same with the gift shop), and
they played some music in line, some fit well, some didn't. Also, I
thing they were kind of going with a Rock-and-Roll theme, too. After riding both coasters, I spent the rest of the day between Timber Terror and Tremors. I rode Tremors about
ten times at least and Timber Terror at least five. My mom and I had
some nachos at the food stall by Timber Terror and saw some baby robins
in a nest that everyone was later staring at. We also went on the rapid
ride and got soaked. You get very wet on that one, and the rafts don�t
drain well, so my feet got soaked, too. I rode in the back of the woodies
usually, and in the front once just to try it, but it was as slow as I
expected. My last good ride of the day was on Tremors in the very back, after which I rode Corkscrew and left. Also, at this park I started
holding my hands up, since I never used to before. For souvenirs I bought
a Tremors T-Shirt, two wooden postcards and a Tremors pin.
Ryan S.
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.
|
