Wooden Coasters

Top 10 Wooden Coasters

Rip-snorting woodies that will make you scream

-- by Robert Coker,
author of Roller Coasters - A Thrill Seeker's Guide to the Ultimate Scream Machines.
-- Top 10 List From a Survey Conducted by Amusement Today

1. The Raven - Holiday World, Santa Claus, Ind.
This terrain-hugging, tree-dodging delight has been a perennial favorite since its debut for one simple reason: it starts off like gangbusters and gets better and more remarkable until the very end. While The Raven's first 86-foot drop into a tunnel is a blast, it doesn't even hint at the raucous mayhem that awaits. You'll become a believer when this coaster hits the spectacular second half of its journey, plowing through Holiday World's forest at top speed. If you're a fan of "airtime," those moments of negative G-forces that lift you out of your seat, The Raven is your ride. A masterpiece, pure and simple.

2. Shivering Timbers - Michigan's Adventure, Muskegon, Mich.
Michigan's Adventure's eye-popping out-and-back machine (it runs in one straight line out, turns around, and races home) is a mile-long airtime extravaganza. The trip out is stunning: three massive timber-shivering drops in a row, measuring 120 feet, 100 feet, and 95 feet tall. The trip home is almost as rip-snorting - the trains careen over a series of "bunny hop" hills, floating you up and out of your seat again and again. Throw in Shivering Timbers' rowdy double-helix finale and you've got a bliss factory like few others.

3. Boulder Dash - Lake Compounce, Bristol, Conn.
Just one of the many phenomenal scream machines that opened in 2000, Boulder Dash is a tour de force, qualifying as both an out-and-back coaster and a terrain coaster; it's literally built on the side of a mountain. It carries you to the pinnacle, sometimes not more than a few feet off the ground, only to turn and roar down a swooping, curving descent. From then on in, it's a frantic dash indeed, scraping around boulders at wicked velocities. Awesome.

4. Phoenix - Knoebel's Grove, Elysburg, Pa.
One of the more aptly named coasters on this list, this classic twister, designed in 1948, once operated as The Rocket at Playland Park in San Antonio, Texas. When that funzone went belly-up in 1980, The Rocket stood sadly idle, its future in jeopardy. Luckily, Knoebel's Grove came to the rescue in 1985 and had it transplanted, board by board, to that beautiful park. Since then, the renamed Phoenix has been earning a new generation of fans with its ample old-school charm.

5. The Legend - Holiday World, Santa Claus, Ind.
Even longer, taller and faster than the number one coaster on our list, The Raven, The Legend sports a 113-foot drop, four tunnels, a double-helix and enough airtime to make it what many considered the best new woodie in 2000. Is it as good as The Raven? Ride 'em both and decide for yourself.

6. GhostRider - Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, Calif.
An imaginatively themed woodie, GhostRider is the action-packed chapter in a tale about a haunted wild west mine. But its theme isn't what makes GhostRider a Top Ten ride. A delirious combination of an out-and-back coaster and a twister, this 60 mile-per-hour, banshee-equipped thriller has it all: big drops, slamming curves, a turbulent helix, you name it. And at 4,533 feet from start to finish, it's also the longest woodie in California. Yee-hah!

7. Rampage - VisionLand, Bessemer, Ala.
VisionLand debuted in 1998, making it one of the newest theme parks in the country, and its signature coaster is Rampage, a 110-foot-tall, 3,552-foot-long twister inspired the number 10 coaster on our list, Megafobia. Loaded with criss-crossing dives and turns, this wondrous woodie is all the more special as Alabama's only major coaster.

8. Texas Giant - Six Flags Over Texas, Arlington, Tx.
This mega-woodie, the tallest coaster in the Top Ten, looms a full 143 feet above terra firma. Twelve years after its premier, it is still one of the grandest lumber leviathans on the planet. The Texas Giant is beloved not for its gargantuan 137-foot first drop, but for its breathtaking climax: a scorching-hot medley of airtime-generating hills taken at speeds that seem to defy the laws of physics.

9. Comet - Great Escape, Lake George, N.Y.
Like the Phoenix, the Comet is another 1948 coaster that ended up in a defunct amusement park - Ontario, Canada's Crystal Beach - and saved from extinction with a move to a new home. This vintage beauty is a double out-and-backer and at almost 4,200 feet long, the Comet features bushels of airtime over hills large and small. It is also the only woodie in this Top Ten that has a steel support structure.

10. Megafobia - Oakwood, Pembrokeshire, Wales
And last, but far from least, there's the United Kingdom's own Megafobia. As remarkably complex as its larger sibling, VisionLand's Rampage, this Welsh whipper-snapper shares its turf with - believe it or not - a herd of sheep. For that reason alone, it's a must-see attraction if you're anywhere in the area.