AlpenFury Construction Underway at Canada’s Wonderland

AlpenFury construction is underway at Canada’s Wonderland. The park is currently building the nation’s longest, tallest, and fastest launch coaster for this season. Today, we were invited to check out the construction progress.

We began our morning with a congregation at the front of the park. It’s quite uncanny to see the frequently busy International Street relegated to a ghost town. Even more uncanny is this will be the last time we ever have this view of Wonder Mountain; there will soon be a top hat sticking out of its side.

Our first stop was at Grande World Exposition, where a Skycoaster previously delivered spectacle for 26 years. Paying homage to it now is the Skyflyer Loop, which will consist of a tight turnaround that spirals upwards into an inversion. For guests, it will marvelously entertain; for riders, however, this will be one of AlpenFury’s most intense elements.

Entering and exiting the turnaround will be a Zero-G Stall and Ice Winder Roll soaring over the top of guests’ heads. The park has made a commendable effort to preserve the willow trees bordering the plaza, instead designing AlpenFury’s sprawling supports overhead of them and Grande World Exposition.

Smart support designs are the name of the game. Closer to the mountain base, the track must cross over guest pathways and International Showcase with minimal interruptions.

In place of the shrubs, a forest of bright blue supports and track now exists. The flatter section of track pulls out from the yet-to-be-built top hat while the hill leads towards the coaster’s finale.

The pullout, of course, leads up into an overbanked curve, which, while moderately spread out, will provide some thrilling kick. Once again, the coaster is a forest of its own.

AlpenFury’s Zero-G finale, however, pulls from the Gröna Lund playbook of layout interactions, careens over Vortex’s drop and alongside Wonder Mountain’s Guardian with little space to spare. Photographers will be obsessing over this display for many years to come.

AlpenFury returns home to a brake run high in the sky above the newly reimagined AlpenFest. The brown support color is exclusive to the area, where the sprawling layout calls its access point home.

Work is already underway to reimagine the park’s International Festival into AlpenFest, and we can’t wait to see the final product. In the meantime, roofing is underway on several resident buildings. Take note — these shingles are not wooden but rather water-resistant fiberglass!

Another one of the area’s concession buildings is also being repurposed into AlpenFury’s entrance. Much of the queue will be outdoors between the entrance and under-construction station.

Speaking of which, the station is currently just a large concrete slab, although the first wooden frames went vertical today. In true Wonderland fashion, we expect the building design to be both impressive and imposing over the refreshed land. You may have already twigged the lack of a transfer track and storage shed; more on that later.

The combined station and merchandise building is essentially on a single large L-shaped slab, with the skinnier portion extending into the midway with the latter. At the station itself, riders will deposit pocket-sized items into a flying bins system similar to those of Yukon Striker and Wonder Mountain’s Guardian, delivering loose articles to the other side of the platform. Larger items, unfortunately, will have to be left with a non-rider or in a paid locker at the ride entrance. The good news, however, is that no metal detection will be implemented alongside it, although this comes with the additional caveat of netting around certain portions of the layout.

While in AlpenFest we gathered around to watch crews install a piece of track, lowering it into the belly of Wonder Mountain. This track will carry trains into the coaster’s second launch and everything else that the lurking depths have to offer.

See, there it is! The bolts were still being tightened when this photo was taken. It’s times like these on the job site that I don’t take ear protection for granted.

The second launch is located entirely inside the mountain, although the track has yet to be installed. Riders will be propelled at a top speed of 71.5 miles per hour into the double-inverting top hat, whose support base is already lined up with a hole in the mountain’s rafters. This was the part where the gravity of the project began to sink in with us; I have no shame in saying that my jaw was on the floor for the entirety of our time indoors.

The mountain will also house AlpenFury’s transfer track, allowing them to store and service its two trains indoors. Canada’s Wonderland is additionally dedicating the space as a full shop, allowing them to service and rebuild the trains here during the offseason. Once inside, AlpenFury’s trains will reside full-time inside Wonder Mountain. Attentive riders might notice the transfer to the right of the launch track.

On the left is the new electrical room, which is dedicated to powering AlpenFury. The 750 kVa transformers are fed a primary voltage of 600V from the park, which is a lot of electricity in more precise metrics.

Above is Wonder Mountain’s Guardian, which is boxed off within the mountain. That coaster’s installation in 2013-2014 required a considerable amount of work to be done indoors. However, only a portion of AlpenFury passes through Wonder Mountain, and the amount of new infrastructure may have matched or even surpassed it.

We exited Wonder Mountain through the original maintenance access tunnel, which crawls beneath the pathway above. Its complete rebuild last offseason and the addition of another mountain access point triggered speculation from myself that it might be repurposed into a launch tunnel. Having now officially toured Wonder Mountain for the first time, I initially underestimated its value towards the interior’s vast infrastructure.

This dropped us off at the coaster’s under-construction Fire Serpent Roll, which wraps two corkscrew inversions around the overbanked turn and is yet to be installed. Approximately 40% of AlpenFury’s track has been installed at this time; priority has instead been directed to its sprawling support structure.

Resting on the ground is perhaps AlpenFury’s single most hotly anticipated steel piece, a bracket connecting two track pieces but not attached to the ground in any manner. You have to love wonky ride design, eh?

The aforementioned middle section takes place almost exclusively in the park’s backstage area. Soon, we will enjoy and cherish this section for the delights it provides, but today was just mud. Lots and lots of mud.

Of course, Canada’s Wonderland was kind enough to further treat us with the lead cars of both of AlpenFury’s trains on display! Premier Rides has been kind enough to modify their SkyRocket train design for the park; absent are seatbelts, floor railings, and the dreaded shoulder straps. The side panels are minimized for improved guest access.

The blue train was displayed at the IAAPA Expo in Orlando last November. I was present for its unveiling there and, of course, ecstatic to encounter it here at my home park. And again, what a beauty she is!

Its better half, however, is the orange train, which was available for us to try out. Granted, it’s the front row, and we had cushy jackets on, but hey, it was comfortable! First father-son duo on AlpenFury, anyone?

By all accounts, Premier Rides was only signed on to the project in September 2023 after accepting a Request for Proposal, ultimately being selected after other manufacturers were unable to commit to the tight 2025 deadline. Major roller coaster projects typically spend several years in development between planning and fabrication, and pulling off such a gigantic project within two years is an astounding feat. The race is on to open AlpenFury later in the Spring, and we couldn’t be more excited.

On a closing note, the park is flourishing with off-season activity. A new gazebo has been built near Victoria Falls, Spinovator is being reinstalled after a renovation, and several digital information boards now dot the park. Mighty Canadian Minebuster is finishing up the installation of nearly 1000 feet of new Gravity Group Pre-Cut track, while the decommissioned Time Warp is currently being torn into scrap. We were unable to access either coaster. Canada’s Wonderland always stays busy during the offseason, and the construction of AlpenFury only underscores their commitment to another great season.