Silverwood ride debuts with a splash

On the walk to the top of the newest water slide at Silverwood Theme Park, many thought the ride seemed more pleasant than scary.

But that was before sliding down Avalanche Mountain, which debuted Saturday.

“You don’t think it’s going to be as fast,” Taylor Kalvin, a Northwest Christian School student, said after a ride on the 700-foot-long slide. “It’s not intimidating until you get on it.”

The slide is part of $6 million in additions to Silverwood – mainly at Boulder Beach, its water park. Besides Avalanche Mountain, there’s an extra wave pool and Toddler Springs, an area with multicolored pipes that spray water. (The price tag also includes a not-so-fun sewage treatment plant, still to be built.)

“A lot of people tended to stay away on weekends because it was so crowded,” said Jeanne Norton, who owns Silverwood with her husband, Gary.

Crowded conditions were especially noticeable in the wave pool, according to several at the park on Saturday.

“The wave would hit you and it would be full of people,” said Kalvin, who’s grateful for the extra pool. “It was fun when the people weren’t hitting you.”

Avalanche Mountain doesn’t have the velocity of other slides, but riders go down a chute full of turns in rafts with as many as six people.

The more weight, the faster raft and the bigger the splash, said Josh Eastin, a lifeguard working at the slide Saturday.

“You go fast and you climb the wall,” said Eastin, who will be a senior at Timberlake High School. “You’re pretty much going vertical.”

A few people complained about the 15- to 20-minute wait in line, but most said it was worth it. Silverwood spokeswoman Nancy DiGiammarco said the slide has a capacity of 1,200 riders an hour.

“The boat was about to flip,” said J.K. Choi, a Washington State University student who lives in Pullman. “I like how all the people interact with each other.”

“You feel like you’re going to fall down on everybody below you,” said Jacob Greenwood, 17, of Council, Idaho.

“It was really fast and you get wet a lot,” said Dalton Liesse, a 7-year-old from Liberty Lake who rode the slide with her dad.

Gov. Butch Otter, wearing a suit (not the kind for swimming), attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the additions to Boulder Beach on Friday.

“It’s going to add to the uniqueness of Idaho,” said the governor, who did not get in the water – though he was given a season pass.

Jeanne Norton said she was unimpressed with original plans for the new slide.

“I told Gary that, ‘I think we need to build it into a mountain so you feel like you’re on a river,’ ” she said. After sleeping on it, he “got up and said, ‘We’re building it into a mountain.’ “

Silverwood dug a hole and used the dirt to build a hill. The new slide starts 40 feet above the flat ground and ends 30 feet below, DiGiammarco said.

The change in design had the desired effect on Meagan Roe, 20, of Seattle.

“It kind of feels like you’re really river rafting,” she said.

Staff writer Elida Perez contributed to this report.