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It was the strangest sight.
When you note that the official name of the Six Flags company’s
Seattle-area amusement park is Wild Waves & Enchanted Village,
you understand that this is a waterpark that grew into an amusement
park, not the other way around. And now that amusement park has
a first-class wood roller coaster. So, when word swept the waterpark
June 5 that the new coaster, Timberhawk, was available for
public rides, that public—swimsut-clad—came running. Seldom
if ever has a roller coaster run with so many string bikinis aboard.
Nevertheless, the true attraction was the ride itself. It looked
good. “It’s hidden back here,” said David Malametz
of Lynnwood, Washington. It’s hidden by 100-foot-tall Douglas
firs that the park’s Vice President and General Manager Lenny
Freund fought hard to keep. “I had to save every tree we could,”
he said. “It was like I chained myself to them. Every time
they came to me saying they wanted to cut down another tree, I challenged
them to find a way not to.” The all-timber Timberhawk
snuggles into this northwoods landscape like a primeval stand of
woods.
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Remember, this is a Washington state resident talking; they only
get wooden coasters once every 68 years. For many, Timberhawk
was a revelation, not only that Wild Waves and Enchanted Village
could get such a structure, but that it was so good. “It totally
changes the park,” said Nelson, who “did a lot of coasters”
at various amusement parks around the country when she was a youngster.
Timberhawk is a great one, she said, and would do the Seattle
area proud. The Malametz family had already ridden it three times
in a row, and the daughters wanted to go again. Well, so did dad,
who also has ridden many coasters at other parks in the nation.
“I think it’s cute,” he said of Timberhawk.
“It’s smaller, but well done. Proud to have it here? Absolutely.”
“This will bring a lot more people in,” Cates said. “I’ll
come back.” “Definitely I want to come back,” Baker
chimed in. Ironically, this was her first visit to Wild Waves and
Enchanted Village since she was “a little kid,” and she
and Cates had made the two-hour drive just for an outing in the
waterpark. “I’m really glad we came today,” she said.
“This was worth the drive.”
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It
ran good. “It’s really fast and has lots of drops and
goes up and is really cool,” said Malametz’s 13-year-old
daughter Anna. Sister Rachel, 10, endorsed Anna’s enthusiasm,
but added a keen observation. “Some parts you wouldn’t
think of them having a drop, like the first drop it drops in the
middle,” she said, meaning that after the lift hill Timberhawk
turns full circle and drops back through the middle of the structure.
Later, in a signature moment, the train runs up on a parallel track
beneath the first drop and makes a hard left turn through supports
and explodes onto a drop along the outside of the structure. This
was one of the moments that struck Sammi Nelson of Maple Valley,
Washington. “I like the speed coming up around the corners,”
she said. And David Malametz, echoing his daughter’s point
that Timberhawk “goes up” said, “You really
do go up pretty quickly.”
It felt good. That was vitally important to Sheena Baker, 18, of
Sedro Woolley, Washington. She accompanied Jesurun Cates, 18 and
also of Sedro Woolley. He brought her over from the waterpark, but
she really didn’t want to ride Timberhawk, the largest
coaster she had ever seen and just one day recovered from an upset
stomach. “You guys talked me into it,” she said of Cates
and a news reporter, “and once I did it once, I wanted to go
again and again.” Twenty times, in fact. “It makes you
feel all tingly,” she said. “I don’t know when it
came, but I hope they keep it.”
Text
and photos
by
Eric Minton/THE LOOP
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