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ELITCH GARDENS
Denver, Colorado (Abbreviation: EG)
Known at Six Flags Elitch Gardens (1999 - 2006)
Owned by CNL Lifestyles Properties
Managed by Herschend Family Entertainment
Park News - (6/29/12) Elitch Gardens was forced to remain closed until about 3pm on Monday when a suicidal man snuck into the park early that morning and scaled the park’s Sidewinder coaster. Rescue crews were able to distract and grab him before he could jump.
(4/25/12) The latest progress photos from Elitch Gardens have been posted here.
(4/10/12) The latest park pictures from Elitch Gardens posted here near the bottom show The Tower of Doom getting repainted… and covering up the painted on flames near the bottom.
(5/5/11) Good news for Elitch Gardens this season, according to Joel Manby, head of Herschend Family Entertainment, one area of primary focus for the 2012 season is to keep every ride in the park running, and not let things fall into disrepair as was seen in the last few years. They also plan to upgrade food options, better landscaping, new shows, nightly fireworks, concerts and more. Read all the details here.
 2013 - Blazin’ Buckaroo - (5/27/13) Special thanks to one of
our readers who sent in some nice pictures showing off the new Blazin’ Buckaroo family coaster now open at Elitch Gardens.
(4/12/13) Elitch Gardens has confirmed the rumors and will premier Blazin’ Buckaroo, a new kiddie coaster, this season. As noted previously, this is the old Marvel Mania coaster from Alabama Adventures, which has been given an extensive rethemeing job and looks great! (Check out the video below!) The park will also add new shows to the entertainment lineup as well as The Raptor Project, that will bring rare birds of prey to the park. Other park shows will feature African dance groups, magic and motorcycle stunts.
(1/21/13) An interesting story update came my way regarding the future plans for Elitch Gardens. According to our source, the park did indeed buy the X-Coaster from Magic Springs in Arkansas. The park was said to be in the process of preparing to move the ride and had already had sent a team to remove and transport the coaster’s electrical systems. However when the crews went out to begin planning how to take the ride apart, they discovered that much of the top section of this unique coaster design was welded together and would take a bit more work and time to cut apart for transport. While Elitch Gardens is still planning on getting the coaster, these plans are on hold for now, and hoping to happen in 2014 instead.
For 2013 the park’s new kiddie coaster will actually be the former Marvel Mania coaster from Alabama Adventure, a fairly standard Miler kiddie coaster design. The former Marvel Mania coaster will replace Elitch’s Cactus Coaster which is being sent to Frontier City.
(1/18/13) According to the latest rumors, Elitch Gardens may not be getting the X-Car SkyLoop coaster from Magic Springs after all. According to our one source, the pieces of the X-Coaster may have been welded together rather than bolted, making re-assembly far too costly. (While I know Magic Springs closed X-Coaster, has anyone noticed if the park actually took the ride out yet?)
Meanwhile, the park is rumored to be adding some kind of kiddie coaster to the park instead, possibly a used one from another park. Anyone know more about this new rumor? To be fair, the park never announced anything for 2013 yet, so this is all a work in progress.
(11/16/12) Screamscape sources have reported in from Elitch Gardens this week, claiming that there appears to be some kind of excavation work going on next to the park’s amphitheater, possible near where the Flying Coaster used to be.
(10/9/12) Odd rumor coming from Elitch Gardens this week, as there is a rumor going around the park about how a new coaster may be added to the park in the next year or two. The rumors describe it as a mixture of the park’s ‘Half Pipe” and ‘Boomerang” coasters, but with a closed circuit and with a roll over inversion at the top. Yep… sounds very much like a Maurer X-Car SkyLoop style coaster.
SkyLoops are not common, especially not in the USA where only one has ever been built. Funny though, it was just announced this week that Magic Springs, a fellow CNL Lifestyle Properties park, was removing this exact coaster model at the end of the month. If the rumors are true, we can expect to see X-Coaster shipped over from Arkansas and get installed in the location of the old Flying Coaster.
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