It’s all in the anticipation.
Seeing their twisted tracks rising high in the sky and hearing the sounds of their screaming passengers piercing the midway, roller coasters start playing mind games before park visitors even board them. As riders slowly climb the initial lift hill and thoughts of “What have I gotten myself into?” race through their minds, their pulses begin to quicken and adrenaline starts to pump.
Dive coasters, such as the new Yukon Striker at Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario (near Toronto), take the element of anticipation to an absurd extreme. Instead of immediately freefalling after reaching the top of the lift hill, their trains extend just over the edge of the first drop and come to a complete stop. Staring into the abyss for what seems like forever (but is really only a few seconds), passengers are left to hyperventilate and ponder over the madness that’s about to take their breath away altogether.
So there I was, wide-eyed with anticipation, staring down 245 feet into the abyss of the world’s tallest dive coaster and wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into.
