Magic Mountain: Cool coasters on a hot day

I took my good friend and fellow coaster enthusiast, Will, to Magic Mountain to celebrate his 40th birthday. We figured out he hadn’t been to the Valencia amusement park in 18 years. Back then, Colossus was still a relatively new wooden coaster with lines that stretched forever. (A professional photographer, Will took the Tatsu collage above.)

We set out to ride all the coasters on a melting-hot day (with high humidity and temperatures near 100). We hit everything except Déjà Vu (broken down, imagine that), Superman (only one side operating, intermittently at best) and the Percy kiddie coaster (a height maximum prevented us from boarding).

Will and I shared the same top four favorite coasters:
1) Colossus
2) Goliath
3) Tatsu
4) X2

I rank them the same, swapping only the order of the first two.

We agreed, with equal disappointment, that Revolution was the worst coaster in the park. It’s a shame considering the ride’s status as the world’s first looping steel coaster. Will’s onboard review went something like this: “Oww! My head! Oww! @#$%!” Magic Mountain officials have told me the shoulder restraints (a.k.a. head-slappers, ear-boxers) are “never ever” coming off. We both loved the new Spirit of ’76’s red-white-blue paint jobs on the cars, though.

To escape the midafternoon heat, we ducked into the new “CSI: Live” stage show. To say it was bad would be putting it mildly. Other words come to mind: boring, pathetic, horrible. They should rename it “ACI: Now” (Air Conditioning Inside) because the theater’s cool respite was the show’s only redeeming value.

But, all in all, it was a great day, ending on a positive note: We were the last ones to step off Colossus when the park closed. You can’t beat that.

Will and I also share another passion: Tommy’s hamburgers. He’s a bit more of a fanatic than I am, having memorized every restaurant location in Southern California. I was thrilled to learn there’s a Tommy’s just up the road from the Mountain (28116 N. the Old Road, Valencia). We both agreed the world famous chiliburgers are best left for après coasters. Especially at our age.

Find the latest amusement and theme park news at the
Los Angeles Times Funland blog: www.latimes.com/funland

— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times staff writer

Photo credit: Will Hare Photography

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 12:41 pm by Brady MacDonald and is filed under Family & Kids, Los Angeles, Magic Mountain, Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.