Soaky Mountain Announces New Water Slide for 2025
Visual: Courtesy of Soaky Mountain Waterpark
Photo: Courtesy of Soaky Mountain Waterpark
(eap) Soaky Mountain, an outdoor waterpark that opened in Sevierville, Tennessee in summer 2020, today announced plans to build a new large water slide, which is scheduled to add new thrills for guests at the park as of May next year. The announced new attraction, which will be called “Rafter’s Rage”, is a raft slide from WhiteWater West (Canada) that will launch from a height of roughly eight stories, will be over 250 metres long (825 feet) and can be experienced in six-person rafts. During the descent, a maximum speed of around 30 km/h (19 mph) will be reached.
Dave Andrews, General Manager at Soaky Mountain Waterpark, emphasises the special features of this coming new attraction: “Our ‘Edge’ water coaster, which was the first of its kind in the world, has been such a hit we’ve decided to follow it up with Rafter’s Rage, another first-of-its-kind attraction. Rafter’s Rage will be different than most water slides with high banking turns and steep drops because instead it will feature four artfully crafted arcs that rafts will laterally accelerate over sideways. This thrilling drifting experience – a world’s first for a water slide – will extend a rider’s zero G feeling, making it an incredible attraction.”
“Rafter’s Rage” will be located next to the “Avalaunch” water coaster, behind the “Black Bear Rapids” adventure river. Soaky Mountain Waterpark is operated by the Wilderness Resorts and Waterparks group, who also owns and manages the WildWater Dome indoor waterpark (Wilderness at the Smokies) located directly opposite, which was also recently expanded with new attractions (c.f. our coverage in EAP 2/2024). ■
