Today’s Magic Mountain update is filled with Full Throttle pictures. The ride is turning out to be more photogenic than we thought it would be. There hasn’t been a lot of additional track installed since our last update, but this week we were able to view the attraction from different angles. We’ll also update you on the continuing saga of the new buses.

Even though Magic Mountain is a year-round park, this past weekend marked “opening weekend” for the park. The park will now be open daily until Labor Day. If you’d like to enjoy an empty park, weekdays in May and early June are perfect times to go to the park.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

Full Throttle

From the Sky Tower, you can see the new track that has been installed since our last update. The track in front is coming out of the tunnel into the top hat. The track in back is exiting the loop heading up and over Superman Plaza.

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Most of the supports for the station track, brake track and transfer track have been installed. You can see just how tight the turn around from the brake run to the station is.

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
A close up of the station pad
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
A close up of the track heading out of the tunnel heading up to the Top Hat element.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
A portion of the transfer track has been installed
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
The portion of land vacated after the demolished the Looney Tunes Stage sits empty for now. Hopefully something is going to go here. That’s a lot of prime real estate.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
No work is evident on the exterior of the new retail/restaurant space.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Out in the boneyard, you can see some of the double-sided loop/top-hat track.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
A site overview
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Down on ground level, the ride has totally changed the look of Superman Plaza
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Coming up the hill

It appears they made need to move the blue fence a bit. Not that I believe it will be a problem, but for safety’s sake that does appear to be a bit low. You can see just how low it is from the people standing by the support. The temporary fences aren’t going to cut it.

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
It does look pretty awesome heading up the hill. These pictures pretty much speak for themselves.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Heading up into the top hat

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
They have planted some trees in the area. Nice to see they aren’t just paving over everything.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
It’s kind of hard to tell from the light in this picture, but the tunnel has been painted
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Down at ground level you can see just how tall the station/brake supports are. Remember, the loop is going to go up 160 above this. I’m pretty sure the top of the loop will be the highest point of the ride.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Heading out of the loop
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Into the Top Hat
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
A close up of the two track paths

Around the Park

As we mentioned on our update last week, the Candy Company near Apocalypse received a new roof and new air conditioning units recently.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
The new buses have been up and running for a few weeks, and we’ve already noticed a couple of things the park has done to alert guests of the new areas.

magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
Unfortunately the loading area’s are still very temporary.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
There is now a sign near the new loading area, but as you can see from the picture below, it’s not close enough for people to see when exiting the park.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
In the few minutes I was in the area I saw multiple people go to the old load area out of habit. There is a sign in the old unload area now as well.
magic mountain, Full Throttle Inches Toward Completion at Magic Mountain
The new sign in the new loading area.

The new signs are going to help but the park needs 1 or 2 additional signs at the exit alerting guests where to go, since everybody is so used to the existing pick-up area. The additional signs coupled with a more permanent queue for the buses should help for the long-run.

Lastly, our friend Tim Burkhart, who has been at the park since 1977 and was the Director of maintenance and construction for Six Flags Magic Mountain, has recently been promoted to Vice President of maintenance and construction for all of Six Flags. You can see the great article in the LA Times. Congrats Tim!! Hope this doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing less of you at Magic Mountain.

That will do it for this week. The Loop/Top-Hat for Full Throttle should start going up any day now with vertical construction being completed sometime in early April.

Remember that I am doing Coasting for Kids this June at Knott’s for the AMAZING charity, Give Kids The World. You can donate to my page here, I’d really appreciate it, and so will the kids.

Gregg Condon
Gregg Condon, also affectionately known as Sir Clinksalot, is MiceChat's Six Flags reporter. He is frequently featured in MiceChat's In The Parks columns.