Camelbeach Waterpark Opens High Noon Typhoon Tornado Slide

© Camelbeach Waterpark

Proving once again that late is better than never, Pennsylvania's Camelbeach Waterpark recently opened a brand new water slide, named High Noon Typhoon.  The ride is one of Proslide's standard Tornado slides, which stand around six stories tall and utilizes four-person clover leaf shaped tubes.

As with these types of slides, the passengers sail down an enclosed section of slide through a turn and then fall into a large, steep drop into the funnel.  The tubes sail up and down the sides of the giant funnel, reaching high up the sides at first providing a moment of a weightless feeling.  As they oscillate back and forth they come to a rest in the middle of the funnel and then slide out at the bottom into the catch pool.

© Camelbeach Waterpark

While these Tornado-style rides have been around for many years now, this debut at Camelbeach Waterpark is noteworthy.  This is actually the slide's second home, as it was originally located at Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom where it was built in 2005 and named Liquid Lightning.

This past fall the Tornado slide, along with the tall Thunder Falls slide complex, and other remnants of Wildwater Kingdom (which ceased operations after 2016) were for sale via a third party.  It looks like Camelbeach saw an opportunity to pick up a large slide at a fraction of the cost of a new one, and now the rest is history.

So fans of Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom who have ridden this Tornado slide in the past still have an opportunity to ride it once more, now as High Noon Typhoon at Camelbeach!

From The Vault: Camelbeach 2004 Brochure

When I was looking over the 2012 attendance figures we linked to last week I will say I was a bit surprised to see that Pennsylvania's Camelbeach is now ranked as the 20th most visited water park in the country.

The park isn't too far from me, and it's amazing to see how much it has grown in the past decade or so.  This brochure is from 2004, and there have been several additions since then, too.

Camelbeach water park is located at Camelback Ski Resort, and makes the property function year round - obviously there isn't too much skiing going on during the warm months.  Camelbeach came along in 1998, and has seen steady expansion ever since.  In 2004 the cover of the brochure declares that they had more water slides than any park in Pennsylvania, but I'd hate to try to go back in time to prove that true or not.

2004 saw the addition of the Checkered Flag Challenge, a mat racing slide - a style of attraction that is quite popular at water parks across the globe.  The Checkered Flag Challenge has eight lanes, which means that it can accommodate plenty of racers per hour.

Since the water park is relatively new, it has a pretty big selection of modern water slides.  Titan is a fan favorite, billed as "the world's largest natural-terrain family tube slide," its course heads down the side of a giant hill.  The total elevation change from top of bottom is almost eight stories.

The park also has a set of quick speed slides named Triple Venom, a pair of bowl slides named Votex and Spin Cycle, and many other staple attractions like a huge wave pool, lazy river, and water play area for kids.

And we will finish with a look at the brochure with this handy map that was included.  Being a ski resort there are plenty of hills around that many of the slides take full advantage of.  But there's also a flat area at the base of the hill with the pools and river as well.  You can check out more of what the park offers today by visiting their official website.

Camelbeach Expands!

This season, two new attractions will take top-billing at Camelbeach Waterpark in Tannersville, PA at a cost of $2 million: the SandStorm, a speed slide with dips, and the Dune Runner, an 800-foot enclosed slide with two different "bowl" sections. Both attractions will launch from the same tower.

The new slides are set to open June 17, which may seem a bit late in the season, except for the fact that construction can't begin until the snow is melted from the ski slopes, intertwined with the waterpark attractions.

On a personal note, I had the pleasure of taking a recent ski vacation to Camelback Ski Resort. It was pretty cool to whiz past all the dormant waterslides of Camelbeach, covered in a fine layer of snow and waiting for their chance to once again thrill a new batch of fun-seekers.