The Leavenworth Journey Park mountain coaster makes use of gravity, however you present the brakes.
An orange and silver tower is ready into the granite hillside on Freeway 2 in Leavenworth, appearing as a sentry to the city’s Bavarian-style streets. Sure, there is a curler coaster within the Cascades, however the trip may pale in comparison with the journey that surrounds it.
The Leavenworth Journey Park’s alpine coaster—the primary, and solely, in Washington—boasts spiral helix circles and hairpin turns alongside a 2,700-foot-long monitor. This sort of gravity-powered trip is frequent within the Alps: Germany’s longest coaster glides for practically two spectacular miles. Given Leavenworth’s Bavarian theme, the oddity made good sense when it debuted in 2023.
I enter below a facade painted with the promise that “Journey Begins Right here.” Digital ticket in hand, pleasant workers brandish a wristband affording two rides on the attraction. The coaster, nicknamed the Tumwater Tornado, borrows its moniker from close by Tumwater Canyon, an journey capital in its personal proper with Class V river rapids and traditional rock climbs.
After a brief security video explaining the usage of the hand brakes I’d be in control of deploying, I loaded right into a no-frills plastic orange seat. The cart lurched skyward, giving me time to marvel concerning the engineering of those carts gliding alongside metallic tube tracks. A cable system much like a ski raise lugged my cart up the hill; metallic cages flanked downhill turns as a last-ditch security precaution.
On the monitor’s precipice, an worker instructed me to launch the brakes: gravity would take me down from right here, lending a quieter trip than typical motor-powered curler coasters. I whipped round corners, reflexively pulling again on the hand brakes. Sudden dips afforded a fleeting feeling of levitation—and appreciation for the car-style seat belt.
Snaking across the curves, I attempted in useless to seek out views past the 76 gasoline station throughout the road. Forward, there was downtown Leavenworth and the arid, hilly expanse of Japanese Washington, however most mountain views had been behind me or additional up Icicle Highway. Just a few extra whiplash moments and my cart glided again into the multistory hut; the journey was over. “Enjoyable. Fast,” I heard one rider succinctly describe the coaster on his approach out.
Bushes, mountains, and a downtown stuffed with bratwurst.
And fast it was. I had stats: the downhill portion had lasted simply 90 seconds. Certain, your pace is based on how heavy-handed you’re with these brakes. However you’re additionally on the mercy of different riders. I vowed on my second trip to brake sparingly for max thrill issue, however the carts in entrance of me had totally different plans, and riders should go away designated area (marked with useful indicators alongside the cages) between themselves and the following cart. In any case, this isn’t bumper carts, as the security video helpfully warns. One slowpoke interprets to a leisurely, considerably disappointing trip for everybody behind.
Submit-ride, I wandered out by an empty meals court docket to the rock wall and mining sluice on property. Total, the trip was a high-quality factor to do on trip in the event you’re already in Leavenworth and pining for a Bavarian-style mountainside journey, however questionably price $20 a pop (two rides for $36).
I had dropped my buddies off only a couple miles away to path run amongst alpine lakes and towering granite peaks that encompass Leavenworth whereas I explored the journey park, and the irony wasn’t misplaced on me. Later that day, we donned harnesses and quickdraws at a pure mountain climbing crag throughout the freeway from the coaster. From the highest of every pitch, we might spot the orange carts by the bushes, and occasional squeals wafted by the thick summer season air.
The Leavenworth Journey Park’s creation was contentious among the many small city’s practically 2,500 residents. That noise—along with parking woes, visitors will increase, and a common dislike of the city’s theme park-ification—had been grounds for opposition. A 2018 Change.org petition in opposition to the proposed park garnered 7,099 signatures; group group Mates of Leavenworth introduced park builders to court docket in an finally unsuccessful effort to nix the undertaking.
“Properly, now you’ll be able to say you probably did it,” I overheard within the park’s devoted car parking zone. Like a visit to the nutcracker museum, a trip on the Tumwater Tornado is now an compulsory Leavenworth tourism proper of passage.
