Mill Race memories

Original STR also had a fiberglass liner on the inside of the flume.

Not when I worked there, must have been added after 1974.

I always thought the outside of the old shoot-the-rapids flume was made of wood, not galvanized. I remember that it was green in color and I thought I remember wood grain through the paint.

They troughs themselves were made out of galvanized metal, and they sat in wooden frames (painted green). To the best of my knowledge that is how it was the entire life of the ride.

I used to go on both the vintage STR and mill race and remember thinking how odd it was when they renamed it The Nestea Plunge when I was a kid, probably renamed from all those stupid iced tea commercials during that time?
My fondest memory of the Mill race is when I was a teenager and my mom used to drop off me and one of my buddies off at CP. It was getting towards the end of the day (8pm or so) in the summer and my buddy Todd stood up in one of the logs on the way down the final hill on Mill Race and we got promptly escorted out of the park and told not to return the rest of the day, my buddy smiled, laughed, and proceeded to tell managment: "We were done anyway!" Good times....

I cannot rule out the possibility that it was a direct clone, but it sure appeared to be the Mill Race. The boats were identical too.

Dutchman: I worked the Rapids 77-78. I can remember walking that slimmey flume before opening. My memory may be clouded, but I seem to remember the flume having a fiberglass liner that was delaminting from the underlying substrate. In any case, it is a pleasure to hear from an old Rapids crewman.

It's quite possible that they fiberglassed the inside of the trough in the years after I worked there. It's likely they thought that glassing it would eliminate the yearly caulking of the joints in the Spring, cause it would leak like a sieve the first fill of the year.

Does anyone remember any details of the original Shoot the Rapids between the station and the final drop? From the pics online it looks like there was a short lift just after pulling out of the station. From the souvenir maps it looks like the ride just went in a small circle with the double dip finale. I have no memory of the ride other than waiting in line by the final drop and the station. Would love to see stats and rare pictures if anyone has them to share. Happy New Year guys.

STR did have a small lift after leaving the loading belt. This lift provided the elevation necessary for the water to flow thru the troughs toward the main hill. Once past this first lift, your boat would meander thru trees as you circled the central lagoon. You would come pretty close to the Frontier Inn or whatever it is called now. That is where there was a crew station called "Flume Monitor". You had an elevated chair and a microphone. Your job was to remind people not to rock their boats and keep their hands inside - which, of course, many didn't. The smell of the fried chicken next door was torture.

The main hill was roughly parallel to the midway. The first drop was the smaller of the two and landed you in an upper splash pond. Their were simulated rocks, trees and rapids down the center of the hills. Unfortunately, the upper splash pond water level was variable. If too low, you careened thru the slight bend in the trough leading to the second hill. If too high, you got stuck in the pond, as it had no current. That prompted the creation of the crew station called "Boat Puller". You had to sit on a narrow board along the trough and pull any stuck boats to the small belt preceeding the final drop. This station was despised by all much like the guy on the Mill Race who moved the gate to select your unload station, as you frequently got you feet soaked, if not more.

The final splash pool simply led to the unloading belt. An experienced crew member could bring your boat only part way up the belt and leave the back end of your boat hanging low in the water. The next boat coming down the final hill generates a sizeable wave that then would splash over the back of the boat on the lift and seriously soak the rear occupants. Not that I ever did that ;-)

^ Thanks Rapids 77/78 - love that ride description - THANK YOU!

The meander section of the ride is what I'm most curious about lol. Did the trough just form a large oval around the lagoon, or where there direction changes? Did the two troughs follow the exact same course? Did the distance between the channels vary? Could you see the entire layout of the ride from the path running next to the antique cars? I've never been able to find anything on this ride other then pictures of the final drop - which I'm pretty sure was the most interesting and visually appealing aspect of the ride.

The flume did change direction a bit. One interesting thing was that path of the ride was altered at one point in its life. When the ride first opened, the flumes separated at one point in the course and one of the two flumes would go through an opening in the lift hill and then meet the other flume shortly before going up the big lift. Later, the ride was changed so that both flumes were pretty much parallel for the entire ride.

I saw that direction change on one of the maps and assumed the artist let his imagination get carried away - interesting. Thank you!