Enchanted Forest/Oaks Park

[johnjniehaus]

Sorry that I am behind on posting this update on my visits to parks here in the PNW. ACE had a small event a few weeks ago down at the enchanted forest and my partner and I drove down for it and also stopped by Oaks Park in Portland before heading home. I'll give you all a decent review and I recommend both parks but especially enchanted forest 

Let's start with Oaks. This is a small riverfront park much like the 2000s Coney Island of my childhood. Two coasters (EFMiler and a Eurofighter). The Eurofighter is pretty tame to be honest and the kiddy coaster was surprisingly intense for a Miler. Anyway, where this park excels is flats! They have two old school Eyerly flats - Rocco Plane and Spider. They also had tilta whirl, round up, dogems, scrambler, Eli Ferris wheel, and a beautiful carousel. Over all the park was clean and employees were friendly. If I had one gripe it would be that this park doesn't have much shade outside of the picnic grove. The main midway section is very sunny so bring your hats and sunscreen. 

 

Enchanted Forest is such a gem of a park. Located near Salem, OR this park was hand built and is still very much family owned and operated. ACE donated around $20k to this park during the pandemic and as a thank you, the park hosted a free event that included admission and free tickets for rides on their top there attractions. Enchanted Forest doesn't have very many rides but the ones they do have are exceptionally well executed. You begin by wondering through many walk through attractions of classic fairy tales before coming to the Western Town which is home to the Haunted House walk through which is ticketed and is much longer and more themed than the other walk throughs. The Western Town is also home to the Log Flume ride which is a rare EFMiler flume that is technically a coaster credit depending on how you count coasters. It has a small track section that includes two turns and a drop. This ride absolutely drenched our ACE group and was a beautiful journey along the mountain side before the final plunge. The next area is a German village which is home to the ice mountain bobsled rollercoaster and the dark ride challenge of mondor. Ice Mountain Bobsled was actually closed to the public as they were having some breaking issues on it resulting in only being able to run one train. They did allow the ACE group to ride it had some really good whip in the back especially considering that some of the mid course and trims were probably not functioning 100%. (I will assure you all that the ride was perfectly safe the issue they explained was an issue with the mid course block zone which if two trains were running would cause a risk of a collision hence one train ops). Great coaster and one I would argue is ACE Landmark Material. Challenge of Mondor was a unique Sally style dark ride that follows a wizard through the dark forest to free the gnome looking creatures from the monsters oppressive rule. Such a wonderful custom layout and story on the ride. The park also had great live entertainment including a water show and a music show known as Possibly Irish. We had a q&a session with a few of the Tofte Family Members. (Rodger Toft who was the park founder was unable to be there as he is 95 now and spends most of his days at home resting). We did talk to two of his daughters and a grandson about the challenges the park faced during the pandemic shutdowns and also their plans for future attractions and improvements to the park. The enchanted forest was beautiful, had more trees than BGW if that is possible, and was incredibly clean! Absolutely loved this quirky but charming park and everyone should visit it at least once!