After a minor fire on the Colossus lift hill on Monday we wanted to make it a priority to get back up to the park this weekend to bring you the following update. 
If you missed our first Twisted Colossus update just click the link. 

We'll also take a look at Fright Fest preparations that have been going on now that the park is closed during the week. 

Congrats Neal!!!
Before we get started, we wanted to send out a much deserved congratulations to friend of the site and all around good guy Neal Thurman who was just promoted to President of Six Flags Fiesta Texas. We'll certainly miss him at Magic Mountain but it's so great to see Neal's years of hard work pay off with this well deserved promotion. We look forward to seeing you in Texas next year. Don't forget about us out here!! =)

After Monday's brief fire a good portion of the lift hill and drop is no more. 

Once again, kudos go out to the LA Fire Dept and the park for acting so quickly to make sure the damage wasn't worse. 

Some more track is now on-site and can be seen from the parking lot

Some close ups of the lift/drop. Burnt Ends ... good on BBQ not so much on wooden coasters. 

A wider shot shows just how big the gap is

We haven't heard specifically if this is going to delay construction. As soon as we hear anything we'll let you know. 

Inside, nothing much has changed. 

Sign is still there. I want one of those "Excuse Our Mess" signs for my sons bedroom door. =)

A look at the lift from inside the park, you can see just how they were removing the lift hill track and how the fire happened. 

Peeking in at the exit, nothing to see here. 

Just in the 5 or so minutes I was walking through the area I saw at least 3 or 4 people try to go into the restrooms here. They really need to put a sign directing people to Fort Le John or the Gotham restrooms. 

Walking back out to the car, it's amazing what you can see when you look at things from a different perspective. 

No Spider for Fright Fest. Maybe it will be back next year? 

It looks like the fire caused them to remove about 1/4 of the drop. Maybe a little less. 

Crane is sitting near the old break run/double dip. I'm guessing this will be the focus of work this week. 

Lots of metal connector thingies are sitting around waiting to be placed on the structure. 

It looks like the palm tree that was here has been removed. 

A zoom shot, not sure what if anything can be seen here. Looks like some piles of wood but I think they've been there for awhile. 

Fright Fest preparations are kicking into overdrive as the event is just two short weeks away. 

Magic Moments Theater is promoting Fright Fest, this will also be where the Total Darkness maze will be

The Wrist-Band counter is back in front of Flags. 

The facade for Willoughby's is back. They really should just keep this up all year. 

Lots of spiderwebs

The entrance to El Chupacabra

Lots of awesome Jack-O-Lanterns

The entrance to Aftermath. 

More Scare Zone preparations

Lots of places for the talent to hide

Things even up in the trees

Spiders under Superman

And of course, Spider Webs on Buccaneer and Swashbuckler. Lots of smoke from the nearby BBQ place. 

Creepy Tree

Lots of lights are starting to show up on various buildings throughout the park. Not sure if this is for Holiday In the Park, Fright Fest ... or perhaps both. 

The entire DC Universe Archway is covered in lights. These are LED and can hopefully change colors, so maybe they have multiple uses. 

Pretty much every building in DC Universe was covered in lights. I didn't check if Green Lantern was because I didn't want to. =)

A few already on Flags as well. Will be interesting to see if there are more next week. 

Not much else going on around the park. Yesterday was Hallelujah Jubilee, typically one of the busiest days of the year. It didn't seem that bad to me but I only rode Single Rider on Viper and a round trip on the Orient Express. 

Lex Luthor was closed. Not sure if it's for rehab, but this is the time of year where rides will be closing down for offseason work. Superman was open however. 

Jet Stream had a sign out that it was "Temporarily Closed" so I figured it had just broken down or something. 

Certainly doesn't look temporary to me. 

In fact, they were working on the flume, in 102 degree heat, on a Saturday when the park is closed all week. 

Also heard from The Coaster Guy that the park is hiring somebody to do some fiberglass work, maybe this is a precursor to a much needed extensive rehab during the offseason. Just would have been nice if we could have made it through the September heat that is typical for the area before they closed it. 

That's going to wrap it up for this update. We'll be back at the park next week, that's more of a "fun with out of town friends" type visit, but we'll still have an update nonetheless. 

Coming up this week: 

• Exclusive Interview with the designers from a major Southern California Halloween Event
• Universal Studios Hollywood Update
• Knott's Scary Farm preview
• Halloween Horror Nights Guide (prior to opening night) 
• Disneyland!!
• Eyegore Awards on Friday

Going to be a busy few weeks for us. We hope you'll enjoy everything that's coming. 

If you enjoyed this update please share with your friends and make sure you "like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter. 

If you have any comments, please share them below. 

Welcome to the first of which will be many Twisted Colossus updates over the next (hopefully) 9 months. Probably too many. =)

We'll take a look at the work that has been done so far, speculate on a couple of things for the "Back Alley" portion of the site and share a couple of quick thoughts and pictures elsewhere between the two parks. 

We'll start off our update with the biggest news to come to the park since ... well, Full Throttle two years ago. But this looks to be a nice well rounded coaster and continuing the trend of making the surrounding area better along with the new ride (think DC Universe and the Full Throttle Zone). If a new major coaster every two years is what it takes to get the park looking great then so be it. 

First a couple of Colossus pictures from Hurricane Harbor

Since we're not planning on going back to Hurricane Harbor this season (more on that below) we probably won't get to see this angle of the ride until next May. 

Heading into Magic Mountain, some work has been done on the right side of the station. We still have no clue which station is going to be used for Twisted Colossus but seeing that the bridge is still there and the food/store location at the exit would fit better on this side, it would make sense if it was this side. 

The sign is still there

Doesn't look like anything has been done on this side, but I'd guess the ride controls have been removed. 

They were definitely doing work on the lift today

From the parking lot you can see that the removal of excess wood is already taking place

Moving back in, we'll take a look at the space where the "Back Alley" will be. The bathrooms have been closed for which will hopefully be a much needed refurbishment. 

Expect the old Colossus Cookery/Ben and Jerry's to be a food location again next year. I'd personally love it if they renamed it Twisted Colossus Cookery. 

This big empty space is ripe for an exit store. 

Lots of open space is available for whatever outdoor entertainment they have planned. 

Hopefully the re-do will extend all the way to Scream and Scream Plaza (and the Scream queue). I know most people would like this to extend to the area underneath Scream, but honestly, a refurbishment of the queue, plaza and a paint job would be great. 

I'm guessing these banners have been hanging here for 11 years and really need to be replaced. A new name that would fit the Colossus Steampunk theme would be nice as well. 

Unlike Full Throttle, hopefully they'll still keep some of the natural shade in the area and not turn this into a DJ booth or something. 

I'd expect the Cool Zone to remain, but maybe the misters will be back so it would actually be "Cool" again. 

Just a couple of quick notes from around both parks. 

Our day started off at Hurricane Harbor and if you follow us on Facebook and Twitter you'll know that it wasn't a very pleasant experience getting inside the park. In fact, it's been like this pretty much all summer. 

There simply isn't enough organization in the front area to handle the amount of people who crowd the entry plaza every day. Add to the fact that the Gold Pass lines aren't clearly defined and you have a very unpleasant start to the day. 

This is what the entry looked like at about 10:15. This is supposed to be the Gold Line entry but probably 60% of these people are just regular guests. I don't blame the guests (for the most part), most don't know where to go. 

I don't expect the park to address this in the next few weeks since Hurricane Harbor will be closing for the season, but we'd REALLY like to see a solid entry plan prior to opening day next May. It really wouldn't be too hard. 

Normally we aren't in favor of removing trees and plants, but removing the big planter in the middle of the plaza really would help in this case. When you have so many people trying to get inside both parks and the remaining trying to get their passes processed, some permanent queue area's would be a good thing. Somebody in upper management really should come out and observe this one morning. 

Inside Hurricane Harbor, unfortunately some of the great work they did in the lazy river is starting to wear out. Hopefully they'll address this in the offseason. 

The Season Pass dining plan is back, it really is a great deal if you eat in the park on a regular basis. 

Speaking of eating in the park, the waterfront food area recently got a nice new paint job and a new healthy eating place. It didn't appear to be open however. People ask for healthy choices in pretty much every survey, but they won't last if people don't actually use them. 

Fright Fest is coming in just a few short weeks

Not really a whole lot of work being done in publicly accessible area's yet, but now that the park is closed during the week we anticipate the decorations going up rather quickly. 

Willoughby's Garden of Darkness

Facade for Willoughby's isn't up yet

This is the location for Fright Feast, we totally recommend this when doing Fright Fest. 

Lastly, assuming this will get replaced eventually although maybe they should move it into the queue as a little tribute to the original ride. 

That's going to wrap it up for this update. We'll be back at the park in a couple of weeks for another update on Twisted Colossus and probably a bunch of Fright Fest stuff. 

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