Hailey Stewart | Rawr
About an hour and a half drive away from campus sits the Northwest’s largest theme park: Silverwood.
From the highway it may look like every other amusement park you’ve been to, but starting in the early fall, Silverwood gets a slightly creepy makeover and becomes the haunted world of Scarywood Haunted Nights.
During the month of October, Scarywood is only open to thrill seekers on the weekend, starting in the evening and continuing into the early morning.
The atmosphere of the park is eerie from the moment you walk through the gates, with thick fog, ghostly music and the fear of being chased by a crazy, costumed actor.
As the night gets darker, so does the acting of the park’s many characters. Ranging from haunted dolls to gory zombies to an entire clan of disturbingly sinister clowns, just walking through the park is a spooky experience.
Scarywood dedicates certain sections of the park to various frightening creations called scare zones, and if you want to get from one place to another, there is no way around them. Weaving through a large nest of spiders, a crypt of the dead, a dollhouse of broken dolls and a cornfield of live scarecrows is just a small taste of what lurks around each turn.
If that isn’t scary enough, around every corner there may or may not be something waiting to pop out of the bushes. The character interaction might be the best part of the overall experience, too. There is nothing better than asking a demon where you can find some cotton candy, or a life-size puppet to take a selfie with you.
Scarywood offers several haunted attractions throughout the park, each one scarier than the last — these range from a 3D fun house and a blood splattered swamp to a completely blackened maze-like attraction. The Zombie Express, a train that takes you on an expedition to find and hunt the zombies within the park, is one of the most exciting experiences in the park. This ride gives park goers a supernatural view of the pitch-black amusement park while they pursue the undead.
Although the long lines may scare you more than any of the attractions themselves, they are well worth the wait. Standing in line is also more fun when you’re able to watch others run in horror when they realize a werewolf is following them.
Everyone loves a good spin around the ferris wheel or a ride in the bumper cars, but Scarywood has the best of the best when it comes to roller coasters. Even though most of these rides are not haunted, their sheer speed and height are enough to give anyone a good scare. The Tremors coaster, one of the top-rated wooden roller coasters in America, twists and turns through several mysterious tunnels. Timber Terror, the favorite of many, travels backward for the month of Halloween, just to give you that extra bit of fright.
With most of the main roller coasters open, an array of haunted houses to choose from, and amazingly spooky characters, a night inside the walls of Scarywood is definitely one to remember.