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Photo TR: Almost a Week in Pigeon Forge


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^Thanks!

 

On Monday morning I went to Ober Gatlinburg. There are no coasters, as it's a mountain ski resort. According to the brochure I got however, they are apparently opening an alpine coaster in the fall. I didn't see any construction so I'm not sure where it's being built.

 

Unlike most parks, this one allows you to take a cable tram to the top. You can drive there as well, I believe, but I can't imagine that being nearly as interesting. I've been on one of these in Vancouver before so it wasn't frightening for me at all. It's a very smooth ride actually. The swinging when you cross the towers just makes it more fun.

 

The park is very small. There's only a few rides. Among them: an alpine slide, several chairlifts, a maze, a kiddie motorcycle ride, and a few water raft slides. Everything was fairly expensive, so I could only justify riding the alpine slide. Aside from the rides, there were a few ski slopes, and a mall type area with an ice skating rink. Not a lot of the shops were open, but I did end up buying a shirt and postcards from their general merchandise store.

 

The alpine slide was unfortunately not everything I hoped it would be. No seatback on the sled was fairly uncomfortable with me being 6'2. I could feel every piece of concrete with intense bumps. My pov of the slide was useless more or less for that reason. However, since I was the first person to ride when it opened, there was no one in front slowing me down. The slide goes pretty fast (it feels fast, at least) and there were moments I was legitimately concerned about flipping off the track.

 

On to the pictures:

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The tram stop at the bottom.

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And this is at the top. I only saw one person on the rink while I was there. I saw at least a couple decent wipeouts.

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This is the first thing you see when you exit the mall into the park. It looked like fun, but I didn't ride. Also, I'm not sure if it's noticeable in the picture, but the ride uses an elevator lift system to transport the rafts to the top, as opposed to a conveyor belt lift.

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The alpine slide wouldn't be opening until about 45 minutes after we arrived, so I strolled in and out of the mall a couple of times in search for things to photograph.

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You have to take this lift to get to the alpine slide. Guests are given the option to get off halfway and take the slide down, or ride all the way to the top and then take the lift down. My uncle rode to the top and told me there was an 'alright bluegrass band'.

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There were a few other chairlifts at the park but I assume those only run in the winter.

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Around the corner and down the hill from the chairlift platform is a blacktop with a kiddie motorcycles and 2 water rides. The exit for the alpine slide is also down there.

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Most of the slide was visible from the lift.

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The view from the top tram station.

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I apologize for not having any pictures of the trams in action...it seems I didn't quite have the patience at the time. This is from the Gatlinburg (ground) station.

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The park sign and what I can only assume is one of the old tram cars. Thanks for looking! It's all Dollywood pictures through the end of the report.

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No love for Ober Gatlinburg? Alrighty then, later that day I went to Dollywood if you can believe it.

 

In addition to the photographs, I managed to create offride videos of Thunderhead and Firechaser Express. I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but they are very well shot and worth a watch. Be sure to watch in HD.

 

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Back in the park for day 3. I must say the entrance looks very nice, the greenery everywhere really makes it much more beautiful than it already is.

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This is where people go...to get season passes?? (make up your own captions)

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I have no idea what 180 means.

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It's apparent that the park puts major effort into theming the ride stations. They all looked fabulous.

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The ride was only running one train, so filming was a bit slower than I'd hoped for. But with the great ops at the park, it really didn't take that long.

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Unfortunately nearby lightning caused all the rides to temporarily shut down when I only needed about 3 more Thunderhead shots.

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So I walked back to Firechaser, the other coaster I intended on filming. I'm not sure of the significance of "number 3."

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This firetruck was a real nice touch, however.

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Everything around the ride was a real nice touch.

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It would be about 30 minutes before anything reopened, so I tried to improvise.

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I must say the trains for this ride look amazing. Not unlike every other coaster train at the park. Well, maybe not Sideshow Spin, however that one is interesting.

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I love how they re-purposed some of the Adventure Mountain towers. It would be cool to go up into one to take pictures of the ride.

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If you're unsure about fitting on the ride, PLEASE use this first!!! I'm not sure if I recall any walks of shame on Firechaser, but there were /tons/ on Mystery Mine and it /really/ slowed the dispatch times.

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Finally the ride reopened. This launch may not look like much, but it has some force and is actually a lot of fun. The backwards launch feels a bit more intense than this one.

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Another one of the towers ended up being used for a ride plaza entrance structure. The coaster travels through it as well, but that should be obvious.

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Notice the zipliner towards the left of the photo.

 

After I finished filming Firechaser, I went back and got what I needed of Thunderhead, then rode for an hour before leaving. Thanks for reading.

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Great photos! Love the park. I did go to Ober one time, mainly because for some reason my Aunt and Uncle wanted to visit up there. It was in October so nothing was really running except for the ski lift and the cement-Alpine Slide. It was kinda fun. Glad to hear you loved DW

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I visited Ober Gatlinburg in 2009 for a family reunion. I found it really nice, and loved the European feel it had (which made me want to travel to Europe even more). The alpine slides were alright, apart from feeling super steep at one moment. Oh, and though nobody mentions about the town at the bottom of the cable car lift, many of the stuff down there it is a definite tourist trap to be avoided.

 

Great videos, by the way!

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What type of camera do you use? (Could not see where anyone else has asked, but forgive me if they have!)

 

I think the pictures of the Ferris Wheel are my favorite. I love the long exposure effect - it gives such a neat view of the lighting cycles. Great TR! I hope to see many more!

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^^&^^^ Thanks! Ober definitely felt European and even a bit outdated, and there was hardly anything to do. However whenever I do get back to the area I see myself returning for the alpine coaster. Nothing more though.

 

^I use a Nikon D3100. I hope to upgrade the body within the next few months but it's a great camera. Does what it should and doesn't complain about it. Long exposure pictures are some of my favorites to shoot, I can change the shutter even just a little and sometimes get wildly different results. It's fun to play around with.

 

I'll probably upload what pictures I have left sometime within the next 2 or 3 days or so.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry about the lack of update, I've been busy with the first week of school.

 

I filmed 2 more videos on day 4 (be sure to watch in HD):

 

 

And here's pictures from day 4:

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I must say I do believe GCI makes the most elegant looking rides. These fan turns are especially beautifully crafted.

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I never stopped to listen to what the vulture was saying, but many people seemed to be amused by it.

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Line? What line?

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I hate all the stairs on Mystery Mine, but the view from the top of them is pretty nice.

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Doesn't this park know how to maintain a building?

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Wild Eagle's entrance area is one of the most gorgeous I've ever seen. The entire ride is about flawless if you ask me.

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There's a good view of Firechaser from the station.

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Passing Firechaser Express...

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Firechaser can be seen from Tornado's queue as well.

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Lots of Tornado pictures in the next set. I guarantee it.

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The eagle statue is beautiful in every aspect. I couldn't seem to get over how huge it was; it's much larger in person than it looks in photos.

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One of my favorite pictures from the trip.

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The lift hill is the only part of the ride visible from the entrance, but most of the layout is visible with some searching (Slidewinder queue for example).

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Back at Mystery Mine to film some video (above).

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Lines were pretty horrendous throughout the trip.

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Even the queue is well themed.

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Next update will be the last. Thanks for looking.

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Time to finish the thread I guess. Here's the last batch of pictures.

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The final turn has a surprising amount of lateral force. I killed my knee on the first ride.

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The little touches like this in the queue line are great.

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Barnstormer is the park's S&S swing. It only ran one side at a time all week, but the side that they ran alternated each day.

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I assume running one side at a time saves a massive amount of energy, and it really didn't matter because the ride didn't have a line all week.

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I didn't ride the ferris wheel. I hate these small 'fair' ones.

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Interesting trains.

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Poor topple tower.

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I guess it wasn't busy enough, because whenever I requested a certain row they gave it to me.

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My new favorite part of any coaster ever. This finale is seriously amazeballs.

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I imagine this area will look even nicer when the wild flowers take it over.

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The front row expressions more or less match what mine was on my first ride. The final hill into the break run provided some admittedly terrifyingly sudden ejector airtime.

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The tree blocks the loop. It's hard to get a picture of it that really shows how massive it is.

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The banking of the loop is a bit strange in that there's lateral forces in the entry and exit. There's great hangtime at the top as well.

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On my depressing final walk to the park exit I grabbed one more photo of the statue.

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And one of Mystery Mine. That's it for my TR. Thanks for reading.

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Great pictures!

The banking of the loop is a bit strange in that there's lateral forces in the entry and exit. There's great hangtime at the top as well.

Ah! I had noticed that watching some POVs but don't remember anyone saying that here. It looks like there is an odd turn at the top.

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