Hershey, Pennsylvania – Thursday, July 19th, 2012
I Heart Storm Runner. Even with the newer toys, this is still the best in show at Hersheypark for me.
Unlike Fahrenheit, Storm Runner actually bites as hard as it barks. Each element gets progressively fiercer than the last, all the way up to the heartline roll/snake dive combo, possibly my favorite single maneuver on any Intamin steel coaster. Darn near impossible to remain seated and keep your appendages inside the vehicle during that thing.
Top Hat: 150 feet going up, 180 feet going down, thank you Appalachian topography.
Cobra Loop, basically an Immelmann but with more snap and curvature on the way out.
Hersheypark's Comet, notable for its T-shaped layout designed by Herb Schmeck, and opening in 1946.
Five of the remaining ten remaining Schmeck coasters are in the state of Pennsylvania, of which Comet is one of the largest, though decidedly not the best.
Although the first two drops along the river valley are nice and deep, the whole layout suffers from a decided lack of airtime and somewhat under-performing pacing. I'd still be ready to start a lynch mob if Hersheypark ever decided to demolish it.
Unfortunately I didn't even get to ride the Comet during this trip. I avoided the morning rush to the Comet and came back later in the day to find this. I wanted to be on the train that had to do the midcourse walk down so much!
Comet, out for the count. This was a recurring theme for the day.
Skyrush, also randomly down to one train operation during the mid afternoon.
SooperDooperLooper was down most of the day, and when it did open it had this sign in front of an hour long queue.
Unfortunately I missed SooperDooperLooper this trip as well. A shame as it received all new trains and some cosmetic improvements for the 2012 season that would have been nice to check out.
One of SooperDooperLooper's trains being serviced.
Another classic, even if it's basically a mine train with a loop at the beginning.
SooperDooperLooper, doing fun curves and stuff that's not fun enough to justify an hour wait with one train operation.
Can Magic Mountain please buy a set of these trains for Revolution?
Swiss brothers, Looper and the Great Bear.
Great Bear is Hersheypark's B&M inverted coaster, opening back in 1998.
I think of Great Bear as being the first of B&M's "mid period" inverted coasters. Montu and Alpengeist represented the climax of the first wave in '96 and '97, and Great Bear was the first ride to deliberately tame the inverted coaster and imagine it as something more accessible for families.
There's still bits that I enjoy, including the still one-of-a-kind first drop.
The elevated helix before the main drop is a great way to tease anticipation and provide a flight sensation while the ride still has plenty of altitude.
Most inverted coasters are so focused on inversions in the first half that you don't get any unique maneuvers until you're halfway to the finish, which I appreciate about Great Bear over, say, Talon.
I'm not sure if the 124 foot statistic refers to the main drop length or the overall height. Anyway, there's something involving that number in this shot.
Great Bear's first 100 foot tall vertical loop.
After the unique first drop, Great Bear has a fairly by-the-books middle consisting of three inversions before it gets back to doing its own thing for the end.
Great Bear's second inversion is this Immelmann maneuver.
I really like this writeup for Hershey… Had the opportunity to visit two years ago and found it to be a really enjoyable park, and Lightning Racer turned out to be a family favorite.
However, the reason why I’m commenting here is not because of Hesheypark, its because your main post on the main page offers no place to respond hahaha. A couple of thoughts here. Glad to hear that you totally haven’t abandoned the site, as I find it fascinating. If I could put in my 2 cents, I’d greatly enjoy writeups for Maverick and Magnum XL-200.
When I visited Cedar Point last year (my second trip), obviously Maverick was on of my favorites, and most roller coaster enthusiasts agree. And the ride holds consistently to your concepts of roller coaster “story progression” in intensity. However, from my previous visit I wanted to avoid Magnum because I remembered it being very painful. My friend dragged me on it and after a couple laps I found that it wasn’t as painful as I imagined, but nonetheless it was still fairly lackluster for me. Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Also, as kind of a tandem, I think it would be unique if you did a writeup for Rocky Mountain Constuction as a company. They, all by themselves, I think have changed the roller coaster industry more than any other company in a very long time. I know you appreciate Alan Shilke’s designs (X2 is just awesome), and it’s clear to me that he cares more than most about element pacing, progression, and finales (the double barrel-roll on Outlaw Run, the mini airtime hops on Wicked Cyclone, and the twisty switchback section on Wildfire, just to name a few stand-out finales). I’m not sure of how many RMC coasters you’ve ridden, but if its more than a few, I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about them.
Anyways, sorry that was kinda long-winded, I’ve been meaning to comment for a while now. Keep it up and I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
As per JetstreamCoasters, commenting here because I can’t comment elsewhere.
Just wanted to say thank you for your years of intelligent commentary on rides & parks. Your words became a bit of a narrative to my first experiences of parks all over the world after I conquered my fear of coasters back in 2011 at the not-so-tender age of 36! The next three years were spent in whatever parks I could find on RCDB and reading your commentary for your unique insight prior to my visits.
Oh, and thanks to your site, I can no longer ride the Universal Studio’s Rip Ride Rocket without activating the secret track #112 – Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird – this must be the best coaster soundtrack ever!
Like you, life has since moved on. I have a 2 year old boy now, and visits to parks are few and far between. But I’m encouraging him to eat all his food so he can grow to reach the magic 0.9 & 1.4m heights so I can go venturing the world of coasters with him too. And whatever you decide to do with this site, I look forward to seeing more of your writing, in whatever form into the future.
PS. I rode Sky Rush (also known non-affectionally as ‘Thigh Crush’) back in 2013. I rate it as one of the most terrifying coasters I’ve ever been on, mainly because if those damn restraints break my femurs, I’m toast! Did you notice the ever-so-slight release of the restraints on the holding brake at the end? So Intamin/Hershey know about the problem then!
Thanks for the kind words, Ty. As I said in my last update (already more than half a year ago) there will be more updates coming, and hopefully one fairly soon which I’ve made some progress on recently.
It makes me realize just how long I’ve been putting this on hold; 2011 was when things first started slowing down for me, and in that time you’ve had your entire coaster riding career begin and end! (But hopefully will begin again soon!) Time really does get away from us…