An amazing day at Magic Mountain for the first Mountain Madness

Let's take a journey in the way back machine, way back to June 2015. The idea of hosting an event was presented to us along with Kurt from the Coaster Guy and Rob from Metro Atlanta Coaster Club. What transpired was 4 crazy months of planning, 1 epic day of fun and a lifetime of memories. 

This is the story of the first ever "Mountain Madness". 

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Before we get started on our epic day of fun a few thank you's have to go out. 

First and foremost, to the 54 people who came out ... THANK YOU!!! Obviously we couldn't have done it without you. Sure our minimum was originally 100 and sure we had to cut down on ERT due to the lower number, but I think it's safe to say that for those of us there, it wasn't even noticeable. By the time we got over to Twisted Colossus for our ERT everybody was all smiles and the event was off to a great start. 

Secondly, to our sales rep Debbee. I know I probably wasn't the easiest person to deal with because I'm a control freak and wanted nothing more than to put on an amazing event. But it was great working with you and we can't wait to start working on Mountain Madness II (more on that below). 

Thirdly to my Park Journey family (Chris, RD, Matt) and my family ... thanks for not letting me jump off a roof the last few weeks. =)

And last and most certainly not least, to the SFMM employees who put up with us and gave us an amazing time. The Twisted Colossus Crew. Mark Wing for the amazing Toyz of Terror 3D tour. Our group of managers for the Twisted Colossus Tour. The food prep managers and workers. The Demon's from Demon's Door who joined us for dinner and Tweety, yes, we had freaking Tweety at our dinner. Thank you so much!!! You made our event better than we could have ever imagined. 

Alright, now that that's out of the way, how about some pictures of our awesome day!!! 

Everybody started arriving at about 8:15 for a day of fun, but first, we had to park. =)

X2 looks so purty in the morning.

Everybody waiting to get in and have fun, and we're just excited to see if we actually could pull this off. =)

Our day started off with Twisted Colossus ERT, and this is pretty much what it looked like for the entire hour. No lines, everybody switching seats, 3 trains, dueling and lots of smiles and cheers. Pretty sure anybody who wanted a front/back/middle ride got one. 

After the park opened everybody spread out to do their own thing and I kept getting tweets and texts to the effects of "I know you said the park would be dead today but I didn't realize it would be THIS dead". 

Sure, we made things harder on ourselves holding our event on a Friday, during the school year, but the fact that everybody was able to ride or not ride in a park that wasn't busy was something we were very excited about. =)

​It was great seeing people having fun on random rides throughout the day

Or even having fun while riding no rides. =)

Enjoying non-existant lines and fancy rebuilt Ninja trains (it's seriously beautiful)

Our first tour of the day was of the Fright Fest maze Toyz of Terror 3D with the amazing Mark Wing. 

If you don't know Mark, you should. He started off in the parks operations and I remember him from way back when. He moved over to Entertainment/Creative and has been one of the major driving forces behind Fright Fest (his first maze was Aftermath). 

Next up was our amazing Twisted Colossus Tour which we were able to announce a few days before the event. To say that this tour was awesome would be a major understatement. We'll just let the pictures below speak for themselves. 

The fact that the supervisors giving our tour were on the line with the ride crew to make sure we could get dueling pictures was just another great touch. 

Coaster nerds!!! =)

Hugging the best hyper in California ... oh wait. =)

Brent and his son doing their Colossus Selfie

And then magically, like we'd planned it or something it was time for dinner. 

​Wow, our name on a sign. Like we're legit or something. =)

Dinner was amazing, not just the food but they sent over Tweety and some awesome Demon's from the Demon's Door scare zone. 

Our very first event group picture with some friends in the background. I'm pretty sure Kurt has a better version of this. 

After a great time eating, relaxing and chatting with a lot of people it was time for Fright Fest to begin. 

Josh made a new friend in Aftermath

Sinister Circuit Opening Moment

And, just like we promised, ride lines during Fright Fest were like this. Coasters in the Dark FTW!

Awesome new entry for Terrortory Twisted

And lastly, it was time for one last "group" moment for the event. A night ride on Gold Rusher. This wasn't arranged by the park or anything, just a fun time on a classic ride. Everybody was pretty tired by this point but we still managed to have a great time on the ride. 

And shortly after that our first event came to an end. 

Thank you again to everybody who came out, it was all we could have hoped for and more. 

We hope to announce our next event very soon, no later than December or January. We just have to make sure everything we have planned can be worked out but the park is ready for us again. 

We learned some things from this first event that we'll definitely be taking into the next one, such as the day of the week. Our next event will definitely be on a Saturday. =)

Hope you all enjoyed the event and the re-cap. We hope to see you all at Mountain Madness II in 2016. 

Thanks to Jeff and Brent for the additional pictures! 

​- Gregg

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