Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/138830
F ront Runners The dino-mania sweeping the world helped Grand Slam Canyon become a grand-slam hit. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE LAS VEGAS CONVENTION AND VISITORS AUTHORITY scream park AN IMAGINARY THEME PARK DOMINATED THE BIG SCREEN 20 YEARS AGO THIS SUMMER, BUT FOR A REAL RUSH, ADRENALINE JUNKIES HEADED TO LAS VEGAS. BY MURAT OZTASKIN T he spirit of thrilling adventure permeated the country during the summer of 1993, as Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park dominated the box office. As if planned in conjunction with Hollywood, on August 23 of that year, Las Vegas opened its first theme park: Circus Circus's Grand Slam Canyon, a $90 million, five-acre indoor park housed in a 180-foot glass geodesic dome. Before the roller coaster at New York-New York, Flightlinez Las Vegas's zip lines, and the Stratosphere, the city's go-to thrillmaker was the Canyon Blaster, Grand Slam Canyon's main attraction. Still in operation, the minute-and-a-half-long roller coaster features back-to-back vertical loops and corkscrews and ends in a helix twist inside the park's dominating mountain structure. Upon its debut, it was the only indoor double-loop, double-corkscrew coaster in the world—and it's still the largest indoor coaster of its type. As Jurassic Park forged ahead to nearly $1 billion in international ticket sales, the park was revamped in homage to the Grand Canyon of 16 million years ago and filled with dinosaur bones, animatronic dioramas, and depictions of tar pits. Today known as Adventuredome, the park is still changing with the times, recently replacing its Rim Runner attraction, which was one of the world's longest and tallest indoor water flume rides, with the El Loco roller coaster, set to open early next winter. Only the second of its kind in the US, El Loco features jerking turns and a terrifying beyond-vertical drop that is sure to keep the spirit of adventure alive in the heart of Vegas. V VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 011_V_FOB_FrontRunners2_Sum13.indd 11 11 6/19/13 3:06 PM