Silver Mountain Resort’s Silver Rapids: Chasing the Flow Rider Surf Wave
A young man in board shorts and steps onto the deck of the Flow Rider and turns his back to the curl. The focus in his gaze, the set of his jaw, the excitement in his smile speaks of experience. Setting his board to hang off the deck’s edge, he steps onto it, placing his feet with practiced accuracy, and adjusts his balance.
The tail-edge of the board kisses the jetting water beneath him, sending spray to either side. Ever so gently, he shifts his weight back, back, back, until finally he is free of the deck, free of land, of all other cares.
His exhilaration is clear as the young man glides atop the water, cutting back and forth across the wave at will, as if it’s in his nature. As if he were some kind of aquatic nymph returning to the element of his birth.
Eventually, muscles fatigue, reflexes dull. He falls into the rushing water, and is carried to a landing platform at the top of the wave. The fallen nymph sits a moment, enveloped in the white froth of the crashing water. Then he rises, tossing his head back and smoothing his hair, he makes his way back to the deck and onto his board, and escapes to his element once again.
Silverwood Theme Park’s Boulder Beach: The Ricochet Rapids
From the top of the hill, the gigantic green pipeline that is Ricochet Rapids looms massive before its passengers, easily the largest waterslide many have ever seen. A group of five climb into the durable, circular raft. The lifeguard begins to spin them toward the slide entrance, then splashes them with water as they disappear, screaming, into the darkness.
Shouts of surprise erupt from all as the slide drops into steep, diving turns in the dark. The sudden appearance of sunlight is blinding, but vision clears just in time to brace themselves for a near vertical drop off, sending the first unlucky passenger to ride over the ledge backward, heart in his throat.
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Then it’s more screams and laughter as they slide high up the sides of an enormous watery half-pipe. Everyone gets their chance for heart racing heights in the half-pipe. At the far end, the water pools slightly as the raft drifts to the entrance of a 20- foot diameter tube. The crew has just enough time to begin to catch their breath, when they’re sucked down into the semi-darkness.
This section is loaded with surprising drops, and high-sliding corners that seem to go on forever. When the crew finally shoots out at the bottom of the slide, they are all laughing and perhaps a little shaky. They may have to walk this one off a bit before heading back to the top for another run.
Triple Play’s Raptor Reef: Riding the Velociraptor Vortex
The darkness of the tube slide awaits as we mount our inflatable chariot. The life guard on duty makes sure we set up with heaviest rider in front— this strikes me as unusual, and I wonder what my little boy has gotten us into.
On “go” our chariot lurches forward and is immediately sucked into a dark tunnel of twists and turns. Then a sudden drop grants us more speed. Ahead, there is a growing light. Over so soon, I wonder. Then, we are shot from the tube and into the Vortex—a giant bowl that echoes with our laughter as we circle three times before slowing, and drifting to the center. Of course, we know what’s coming, as we’ve now witnessed it three times in our circling. The water continues to draw us in a slow current around a kind of tower in the center. The sound of rushing water gets louder as we approach. Then, we are grabbed by the current once more, and sucked into another slide tube to be tossed about until we reach the bottom and are jettisoned out and into the pool.
I rub the water from my eyes. My son and I are still laughing as we dismount. My wife greets us on the shore of the wave pool. “I could hear you all the way down that slide,” she says to me. My son grabs my hand, “Let’s go again!”
By Toby Reynolds
As Featured In: Summer/Fall 2014