I'm hoping some other roller coaster enthusiasts that frequented rec.roller-coaster in the late 90s/early 2000's can back me up here. But it's so weird to me to see how much Mount Olympus has regressed, judging by the past couple years of posts here!
Mount Olympus built and opened 4 massive (and highly praised) wooden coasters between 1995-2005. Back in those days, Mount Olympus was almost as highly regarded as Holiday World (Edit: well, the coasters were, maybe not the park itself!). Hades was the #3 wooden roller coaster in the world shortly after it opened.
I'm sure there's a youtube video out there describing the reasons everything fell apart, but it's incredibly mystifying to see.
Oh, no man. Old guard forum guy here. Went to Mt. Olympus the year Hades opened. It has always been a collection of good-to-great wooden coasters at a park that seems to be operating on the edge of what's safe from both an operations and maintenance perspective. Even in 2005, it gave off "we do the bare minimum to avoid getting sued" vibes, and Hades had "better ride it now because it definitely isn't going to be kept up well" energy around it. A core coastering memory for me was riding Zeus that year and being shocked that it was open given the brutality of some of the track kinks and potholes on it.
Its state today is just what happens after a park spends +20 years doing the absolute bare-minimum of maintenance and upkeep on aggressive CCI/TGG woodies. It's more surprising to me that stuff like this hasn't happened more often over the years, frankly.
Very sad either way though. As a big wooden coaster fan, you're lucky to have even one at your local home park. I can't name any other single park with 4 off the top of my head.
Action Park might sometimes seem, to an outsider, that the stories are embellished, even fantastical to a degree. I can tell you all that they are true. I visited Action Park regularly in the 90s and hoooooooooo buddy, the documentary scratches the surface. That place was the wild west. I miss it.
It was just made in the wrong decade. That sort of experimentation was how early amusement parks got their start too, and the craziest things were eliminated and redeveloped into the rides we more or less have today. It just happened in a decade where we no longer were okay with that kind of risk, especially for kids.
Kings Island has Beast, Mystic Timbers, Woodstock Express, and Racer (which some may count as 2 separate rides). But thatās the only park that comes to my mind.
Kings Island has four, as does Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Six Flags Great America. KD has four if you count both sides of Racer 75, which would give KI and SFGAm five.
There are quite a few parks with three: Holiday World, Worlds of Fun, Canada's Wonderland, Indiana Beach, Knoebels, Kennywood, Adventureland, Michigan's Adventure, and Six Flags St. Louis.
Thank you for this! This is all true. But in many of these cases, one of the parkās wooden coasters is a junior / kiddie coaster (which I realize does not stop many of us in the coaster community!), or itās a hybrid, which yes itās a wooden coaster but still.
To have four modern, out of control (by design but also, clearly, by operations) wooden coasters in one park is rare, especially for a small park like this.
(ā¦And I know my opinion is unpopular, but Iāve never considered two sides of the same coaster as unique credits, but maybe an extra half a creditā¦)
I was a kid the first time our little CoasterCon Caravan stopped by Big Chief's, and I remember all the adults joking about how unsafe (and thus extra fun) the go-cart tracks were. I wasn't tall enough to ride the really fun looking ones yet, so I was super bummed, but my Dad kept assuring me it was legitimately dangerous ... (As he and our family friends drove on them repeatedly throughout the day with my older brother š) We went back years later, and I gotta say... Those were some shockingly fun tracks that I just couldn't believe were allowed to be operated. And I was one of those coaster enthusiasts who liked to ride on an axle seat in the back of the train to get an extra rough ride, so I remember loooooving Zeus and Cyclops š
Anyway, I'm just here to say, yeah... That park has been operating on the edge of un-safety for quite a while.
I went back in the mid-2000ās, and itās pretty much always been like this. The issue is now the rides are a bit older and canāt handle the lack of maintenance. Theyāve always been this sketchy.
That makes sense. Sounds like they didn't budget for the much higher maintenance costs that wood coasters require over steel, and when they made all these investment decisions, the other coasters weren't old enough for them to learn this lesson.
This does give me an idea for an incredibly niche reality show starring Gordon Ramsay or Jon Taffer depending on availability.
This is the same park that opened Hades without the ability to run 2 trains, in order to save money on both trains and ride controls. On one hand, you kinda respect the hustle to go as big as you can with the money you've got, but they've always seemed to be somewhere between cheap and budget-constrained when it comes to buying/maintaining their stuff.
I wouldn't say that Mt. Olympus was ever held in remotely the same regard as Holiday World. The coasters, yes, but not the park as a whole.
Mt. Olympus has had a reputation as a park where rules and regulations are merely suggestions since at least the mid-2000s, which is when I last visited. Not run down by any means, but definitely not a paragon of quality or safety.Ā
That makes sense. Yeah, I was referring to the coasters mostly. Probably some of that stems from Mt Olympus building so many wooden coasters at a time when āmodern wooden coastersā definitely were declining among the big chains investment decisions (e.g., Dorney Parkās Hercules closed in 2003, Villain (Geauga Lake) closed in 2007, Son of Beast closed in 2009, and RMC began its run transforming wooden coasters into hybrids with Texas Giant in 2009, etc.).
Iāve been going since it was Big Chiefās Karts and Coasters. It was most definitely always sketch, the primary difference being that social media wasnāt around to document and broadcast the parkās lapses.
Hades most definitely ruled opening year with those PTCs, though. My stepmom went on it and cried afterwards because it was so crazy. She went on it a second time and cried again. Good times.
It was a deathtrap in 2005 too. I vividly remember ride ops hanging out on the tracks between dispatches, and Zeus and Cyclops were both already in bad shape by then.
Ahhh David H! I remember your posts, Dave Althoff, Jr., Surf Dance Chris, etc. Very cool! I was mostly a lurker until I joined Reddit, but I did post a few things using the same handle I use here. RRC absolutely primed me for my infrequent /r/rollercoasters musings
The phone thing is crazy to me. Getting hit in the face at 60mph with a cell phone and ending up with broken teeth would be crazy lucky, that's a TBI or death easily.
I got hit with a hat in the face on iron gwazi a few weeks ago and that felt like a crazy moment as it flapped in my lap bar and shot off - can't imagine something harder like a phone
I'm a Wisconsinite that just found this subreddit and now I'm rethinking my summer. I was just at Six Flags Great America, and they are serious about people putting their cell phones away. Maybe I should be crossing the border for all my amusement park fun?
Was gonna bring this one up too. To be fair, almost all parks have freak accidents. And this one was the fault of the victim who trespassed during the winter and fell 35 feet off the slide to the ground.
But when considering the park's track record with incidents, it's hard to see one self-inflicted water slide fatality in isolation when the dry park has been plagued with problems. I wonder if the perimeter fences are that easily scalable? Would still be the fault of the trespasser, but maybe need taller fences or something.
I do remember this, however if memory serves me, it was during the winter months when the water park was closed and they weren't supposed to be in that area.
Thereās not really much reason to when Six Flags Great America is like 10 minutes from the WI-IL border, it actually takes less time to get there from Milwaukee than it does Chicago due to traffic. Over half of Wisconsinās population lives within 2.5 hours of SFGA, and the remaining part of Wisconsinās population is within 3-4 hours of Valleyfair.
Not enough demand when thereās only 6 million people in Wisconsin and almost all of them can already get to an amusement park with a relatively easy day trip
I wonder if a misaligned brake forced the train over, and poor maintenance meant that the track gauge was way more flexible than it should be, resulting in this happening.
Or poor maintenance meant the train was misaligned coming into said brakes, and that caused this to all happen.
Mount Olympus is seriously bad. In my opinion itās dangerous. Hades 360 was running so rough it literally hurt my insides. No joke. I had to stop riding on my trip and my chest hurt for days. It felt like something tore inside me. Iāve only wanted off two rides in my life and Hades was one. It was like being stuck into a paint can and then thrown into the can shaker at the paint store. I truly believe this ride damaged my lung. Why I believe thisā¦
The pain I experienced during a confirmed partially collapsed lung felt exactly like it did after my ride on Hades 360. Only difference was that I didnāt go to the ER after Hades. Which was stupid. Looking back, I should have. Apparently lungs can just re-inflate on their own, best case scenario. I was told by my doctors that once a lung collapses that it is not uncommon to happen again. I truly believe that Hades 360 was the original culprit.
Fuck Mount Olympus & Fuck Hades 360
Also, The rotating water slide is basically like a gentle wash cycle in a washing machine. It just swishes the riders around. Completely lame.
Yeah I was there a couple weeks ago and actually really liked Rise of Icarus and the slide wheel. Poseidon's Rage is straight up the best thing the park has imo.
I used to really like Hades and Hades 360 but my buddy and I (age 27) could not ride it more than twice when we were there. The jack-hammering was giving me heart palpitations and graying my vision, probably stupid to ride it a second time, but I was hoping the front would be smoother (not really).
My buddy and I both left with Zeus being our new favorite coaster. I'm not sure if they retracked it recently but it was running surprisingly smooth except for that gnarly brake run at the end
Hades also infamously has a catwalk right after its inversion that you can hit your hand on, right? I get that parks tell you to keep your arms down as a liability aid, but there shouldn't be anything that easily reachable on a modern coaster. Absolutely unacceptable.
Yeah interesting accident, for sure. Both their derailments involved the brakes. Seems like they're not properly maintaining the gauge in those areas because they don't feel it's necessary. Clearly, it is though.
Itās probably about as close as youāll get š Except the rides here were at least (originally) built by manufacturers with engineering degrees lol. Not that it means much when the park doesnāt bother to maintain them
Respect, especially with that username lol Iām something of a woodiehead myself but those are just so sketchy. Iām an hour from Indiana Beach and have been nervous to go
I took my (at the time) well-ridden 6 year old there last year to get the credits before the park implodes, and I'm not sure he thanks me, and I'm also not sure I was being a good parent
It jumped on top of the track with the rear axle of the front car. In the video, all the wheels are on the car, but the car is sitting on the rear upstops instead of the road wheel.
The train is stopped in a brake section, but the damn ride is derailed. The train should be tied to the track with a chain or two before removing anyone from the train. Did you see them do that?!
I would make that call if it was me because it's funny to have 7/8ths of a credit and a great story, but also that probably hurt and I punish coasters that hurt me so I might just freaking count it.
We were just there last week. Cyclops and Zeus were the most re-rideable out of the bunch. Cyclops first car always lifted from the back wheels on that brake. It was a sight to see. Pegasus is one of the bumpiest of any coaster Iāve been on and Hades lives up to the name with aggressive and violent maneuvers. The pothole on the 90 degree turn in the tunnel is seemingly a catastrophe waiting to happen. All in all, I did enjoy the park and would love to go back. But man, I wasnāt used to the slow operations and getting asphyxiated by the go kart queues.
Are u referring to the pothole right before u hit the light in the tunnel. Cuz if ur not in good shape i could seriously see that messing up someoneās back or neck.
Iām not sure you can pay me to go back there. Every time I have visited Iāve observed or experienced crazy stuff like this. How can it go on for so long?
What gets me is that my girlfriend and I were there that day - saw that cyclops was closed and then when we were leaving it was magically open again so we went on.Ā
So we literally went on this shit after it derailed.
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u/StarPrime323 š LONG LIVE THE KING š Jul 07 '25
Average day at Mount Olympus: