Sky Ride questions

Over the years there have been a few non-stop, high stress, and physically active rides. In addition to Sky Ride, I think of Wild Mouse, Scamper, Sky Slide, and probably the most dreaded of all, Turnpike. That ride was constant running and lots of bending over. It was a real workout. Cadillacs and Antiques also had a constant flow of riders but at least the cars were easier. Back in their day, those rides typically employed men, and the best of them. (I think the Slide was women.)
Even today, something simple like a flat ride can be physically taxing. Last week on a slow day I watched ride ops on Super Himalaya, Matterhorn, Troika, Wave Swinger, and Tiki Twirl walk the (sometimes hilly) perimeter of their rides, checking empty seats, bending over, and fastening seat belts for no one. Not only does it seem exhausting, but it adds to the overall time between cycles. Once the gate is closed and that process begins anyone approaching the ride is made to wait for the next cycle

Add Thunder Canyon to the list of physically exhausting rides. Manhandling the rafts at the bottom of the lift, sometimes fighting the back current of the fill pump, to maintain proper spacing of the rafts.

In similar fashion to sky ride, an e-stop on that ride is a very intense couple minutes to ensure the rafts don't capsize

I'd be fascinated to hear the estop procedure for thunder canyon and the skyride.

If Thunder Canyon is anything like other rapids rides, an e-stop will have a quick, controlled drain of the entire ridepath

I forgot about Thunder Canyon, but I’ve never really spent much time there to observe.
Once I did witness an e-stop on White Water Canyon at Kings Island. It was amazing how quickly the track drained, attesting to the power and life of water on the move. It was literally a few seconds before the rafts skidded to a stop on the bottom.

Yes, Thunder Canyons rafts came to a stop very quickly after the e-stop is hit. The whole process from hitting the button to all rafts accounted for took roughly 3 minutes. For this procedure, every person had a designated role depending what position you were in at the time. The roles also slightly varied depending number of rafts being ran at the time. I'll use 15 (current maximum) rafts as an example. Upon hearing 4 blasts of the horn:

Crowd control would run to throw the gates to divert incoming rafts into the storage flume then attend to any loaded rafts in the table

Turnstile would put on a life jacket and use a hook to help pull rafts into the storage flume

Platform 1 would run up the lift, down the stairs and around the storage flume, put on a life jacket and assist the turnstile person, tying all loaded rafts into place

Platform 2 would also run up the lift, down the stairs and pull the drains in the storage pond, these were ridiculously heavy

Platform 3-5 would attend to rafts stopped on the lift and table

Field had 3 or 4 designated spots to run to and check for dry flumes rafts before running back to the field position to report the status of dry flumed rafts.

I wouldn't ever want to see anyone hurt, but would be fascinated to see that in action. It sounds like orchestrated chaos but if everyone does their job a very safe and efficient operation.