Part #2 New England Trip - Lake Compounce

We arrived to the park at about 1:00pm. We got out of our air conditioned car into one scorcher of a day. The weather was really hot, and unlike the day before I didn’t have a hotel to pool to hang out at. I was planning on going to the waterpark. When I got there and seen how crowded it was I decided that it would be better to endure the heat, and ride the rides.

Wildcat – I was disappointed to see that they assigned seats for this ride, but I was lucky to get the backseat for my 1st ride. It’s a decent little ride, but nothing too intense. 6 out 10.

Zoomerang – This was by far the smoothest boomerang coaster that I have ridden. I was really surprised just how smooth it was. I am used to the Sidewinder at Hershey, and they maintain that very well. I still get a little banged up on that. With Zoomerang I didn’t have any problems. I was sitting in a more defensive position to protect from the headbanging, and I think that may have helped. I won’t know until I ride another. 6 out of 10.

Boulder Dash – I have heard nothing but good things about this ride. I like how the coaster is blended into the mountainside amidst the trees and rocks. It sort of reminded me of the Beast in the way you are surrounded by trees. When you are going for your first ride you really don’t know what to expect because you can’t see the whole layout unless you walk up to the area where the rapids ride is.

My first ride was a front seat excursion. Lucky for me they were running 2 trains, so I hopped aboard the red train. I like how the lift hill is part of the mountain. That must have saved a lot as far as lumber costs in contruction, but at the sametime it is really cool to be riding a coaster up the left hill on the side of a mountain. The lift seemed more steep then most other woodies except for Son of Beast.

At the top of the hill you take a small dip and turn to the right into a straight section of track. Next comes the 1st drop, and a hill up and over the chain lift. Then come a bunch of different floater hills each with a different kind of air, and some lateral changes in direction.

When you come to the turnaround it is just a swooping drop to the left. Then you encounter pretty much the same types of floater hills back to the station. The coaster maintains wonderful pacing throughout the whole course. It left me wondering how did it keep that pace at 4500 plus feet of track. Some of the hills seemed so big that it would slow the coaster down, but it didn’t.

It is like a woodie should be. It was overall pretty smooth with just enough roughness to let you know that it is a wooden coaster. It definitely ranks in my top 5 wooden coasters. Somewhere ahead of the Beast but behind the Phoenix. I don’t have a real ranking for wooden coasters. I just know which ones I really enjoy. This coaster is an easy 9 out of 10.

Boulder Dash and free soda is worth the price of admission alone. I could ride that coaster all day. They have a pretty unique collection of rides, water attractions, and shows. It’s a nice little park that I’d visit again.

Glad to hear that your Bouler Dash rides were good ones. The coaster really seems to be hit or miss with some people during their first ride, especially when you ride it first thing in the morning. I'm looking foward to going back to the park this weekend as it is definitley one of my favorite small parks. *** Edited 8/31/2004 2:16:00 PM UTC by Pale Rider***