Portland, Oregon – Sunday, May 26th, 2019
Entertaining Portlanders since 1905, Oaks Amusement Park is one of a vanishing breed of open admission former trolley parks offering free picnic grounds for the community, claiming to be one of the oldest continuously-operating amusement park in the United States. It’s also, to my knowledge, the only park that still features a skating rink as its anchor attraction. Lovers of vintage amusements might be underwhelmed in comparison to some more famous former trolley parks back east, as most of the attractions are new or new-ish transportable models from the past three decades, and apart from the roller rink and the 1912 Herschell–Spillman Noah’s Ark Carousel, the park boasts relatively few permanent historic structures within its boundaries (which are surrounded on three sides by a large parking lot). Despite a history of ups and downs (including the occasional flood from the nearby Willamette River), Oaks Amusement Park appears to be doing very well for itself today; the park was buzzing with patrons and a new multimillion dollar steel coaster taking command over the far end of the midway.
That ride, Adrenaline Peak, opened in 2018 as the west coast’s first beyond vertical drop coaster, beating out the also-Gerstlauer-designed HangTime at Knott’s Berry Farm by a couple months.
Tickets were $10 for a single ride, or included on an unlimited ride bracelet for $41, about $19 more than a regular ride bracelet that only excludes this ride and the go-karts. As a result wait times weren’t too long throughout the afternoon, making the deluxe bracelet worth the investment despite only having two and a half hours in the park.
Adrenaline Peak sports a striking blue and magenta color scheme, and is somehow the only coaster in the U.S. to use the word “adrenaline” in its name. So kudos to Oaks Park for taking the time to create a unique identity for their new attraction.
It uses the same Eurofighter ride layout that was introduced on Rage in England in 2007, minus the helix finale. While an extra helix might have been appreciated for this very short ride, it more than makes up for it by including the newer Infinity Coaster vehicles with lapbar restraints, making for a smooth and enjoyable while still white-knuckle experience.
The compact layout starts with a 72 foot tall vertical lift hill followed by a 97 degree beyond vertical drop.
It follows with a vertical loop offering a bit of hangtime at the top…
An overbanked cutback element that looks more interesting than it rides…
Then around an elevated turn (with a slightly jerky transition)…
Climaxing with the best maneuver, a slow in-line roll…
And then a final curve and quick hop up into the magnetic brakes.
The whole ride lasts about 20 seconds from the top of the lift to the brakes, but it makes the most out of each second it has.
Adrenaline Peak is a really good anchor attraction for a small park like this. Hearing the operators talk about it to guests, it’s clear they’re still quite proud of their new addition more than a year after its debut. Still, it might be a little too thrilling for some of the park’s younger guests, so I could only hope that it might be joined by a wooden homage to the Oaks Park Zip in a few years.
Adrenaline Peak is joined at this end of the midway by a handful of other larger flat rides both old and new, including a Zamperla Disk’O, an Eyerly Spider, a Round Up, and my favorite, an Eyerly Rock-O-Plane.
While certain other major theme park rides opening that week might be touting a new level of rider interactivity, for me the Eyerly Rock-O-Plane has everything you really need for a perfect interactive thrill ride: a metal handle that lets you control the manual friction brake to determine if you want to pull 3G’s going around the bottom of the loop facing right sideup or upside down.
Heading from the south end towards the north end of the park:
The park’s other most significant ride is the 1912 Herschell–Spillman Noah’s Ark Carousel, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The carousel is home to an impressively diverse hand-carved menagerie, hence its “Noah’s Ark” designation. They also give you a long cycle, keep me on it for what felt like 10 minutes. (I was honestly starting to get a little nauseous by the end of it, which was a first for a carousel.)
Nearby the carousel is a small pavilion with an old ticket booth for a Whip ride, and other disused ride vehicles cleverly repurposed as park benches.
There’s also a series of informational panels about the park’s 114 year long history. How the park’s roller rink managed to survive multiple floods is quite fascinating.
More amusement rides line the south end of the midway:
According to the RCDB, the state of Oregon has a total of four coasters, yet only one of them is a children’s coaster, and that’s Zoom Coaster. And as one of the larger Miler models, it’s a pretty good, sprightly kid’s coaster at that.
Of course I rode it to get the credit (#715) and a POV video to relive the experience over and over!
Anchoring the south end of Oaks Park is their famed Roller Skating Rink, dating back to the park’s opening in 1905. Roller rinks were once common in local American amusement parks, but they, along with dance halls and swimming pools, nearly all went extinct in amusement parks by the 1960’s. (Hint: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had something to do with it.) Oaks is the only amusement park remaining that I can think of that still has a historical skating rink as a major part of their business.
Unfortunately I mistimed my visit strategy and missed out on seeing the inside of the Oaks Park Roller Rink. I guess because the rink hosts a variety of private groups and events it has an operating schedule screwier than a Chinese theme park.
While most of the rides area is essentially built atop the same pavement as the parking lot, the back western side of the park features a very green public park area along the Willamette River shaded with plenty of the park’s namesake oak trees. The only ride that can be experienced back here is the Oaks Park Train. While their CP Huntington train is pretty slow moving and doesn’t take you anywhere you couldn’t see on foot, it was still a nice way to sit back and play a personal game of ‘I spy’ for ten minutes.
And that’s Oaks Amusement Park! While I wouldn’t recommend anyone fly out to Portland just to do this park, if you’re in Portland for nature, food, or weirdness, make sure to give Oaks Park a couple hours of your time, if only to ride the coasters and carousel once. More cities around the country need a friendly and accessible social amusement park like Oaks.
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