Great Escape to build Alpine Freefalls attraction

PHOTOGRAPHER: Lee Coleman

The site work is being completed at the Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom for the amusement park’s newest ride, the six-story high Alpine Freefalls.

“They are doing the preparation work right now,” said Rebecca Close, a spokeswoman for the Six Flags theme park on Route 9 in Queensbury near Lake George.

“Everything is on schedule,” Close said.

Construction of the actual water-slide complex will start by this month.

The Alpine Freefalls will have a grand opening on May 26 in the Splashwater Kingdom area of the Great Escape.

The new attraction will have the park’s first free-fall speed slide with Skybox technology and the first mat racer of its kind in the Northeast.

Close said the mat racer, called the “Twisted Racer,” will allow four people to race each other on a course that features enclosed, looping tunnels that eventually open for a final “drag race” to the finish.

The other element of the complex is called the “Cliffhanger,” a 63-foot-tall water slide. “Perched six stories high, riders will count to three before the floor drops from below, plunging them at speeds of up to 32 miles per hour down an 80-degree drop into six inches of water,” says a Great Escape fact-sheet on the new attraction.

The Cliffhanger slide will probably appeal to teenagers while the Twister Racer slide will appeal to both adults and young people interested in racing each other, Close said.

“It appeals to both families and teens together,” Close said.

The Cliffhanger is on the top level of the complex and includes a clear Skybox in which a person stands before going down the steep slide. The Twisted Racer is located below the Cliffhanger.

The attraction is manufactured by Proslide Technology Inc. with offices in Ottawa, Canada, and the Netherlands. The company manufactures and engineers fiberglass water slides for parks around the world.

Proslide installations are located in China, Korea, Mexico, Europe, and Columbia, according to the company’s website.

Close said one of Six Flags’ goals is to make sure that every one of its parks has something new to talk about every year when it opens.

Local contractors will actually assemble the water slide complex at the Great Escape. Ellsworth Excavating of Queensbury is doing the pre-construction clearing and site work.

The new attraction will be located in Splashwater Kingdom area, which is at the southeast end of the theme park near the Comet roller coaster.

“Alpine Freefalls will offer our guests an extreme water ride experience combined with friendly competition,” said Donald McCoy, president of the Six Flags Great Escape Properties.

“We believe this multi-slide attraction will be a great enhancement to the water park and offer guests an attraction that is as fun to watch as it is to ride,” McCoy said in a prepared statement.

The Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Water Park, which is located across Route 9 from the amusement park and can be seen from the Northway in Queensbury, is currently open.

The amusement park itself will open May 19. The Great Escape Properties will soon start hiring to fill 1,500 seasonal position required to operate the theme park, lodge, White Water Bay Indoor Water Park, and the full outdoor water park, Splashwater Kingdom. Applications are being accepted at sixflagsjobs.com.