Don't Back Down

Looking for a quick getaway, we decided on... camping. Yes, for some reason we thought that it would be nice to go camping. Actually, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for camping, since I did a decent amount of it as a kid. So my wonderful wife, who was in charge of this getaway, booked a reservation at a campground near Maggie Valley, and we packed up our cooler, loaded the tents and sleeping bags, and headed to Ghost Town in the Sky.

I didn't say that we were particularly good at camping. I just said that were were going to give it a try. So we thought that we'd stop at Ghost Town on our way, since doing a theme park on the way was going to be easier than spending night out, then trying to do it on the second night, after fitful sleep and lack of showers and such. Since Ghost Town had just recently reopened, and we were off on a Friday, we decided that it would be a good day to avoid the crowds. On that front, at least, we were right. But it doesn't mean that it's a good value. Read on for the details.

While a lot of people have memories of Ghost Town that involve riding the chair lift, and arriving to the recreation of a western town perched on top of the mountain, and those memories are good, I have to suspect that just about all of them will be soundly dashed by the current state of the park.

Some of the reasons for this are obvious. As you ride the chair lift, you can see trash scattered about the mountainside, as if the last five years of neglect have simply not been cleaned up. As you near the top of the mountain, there are signs of life, as if the new owners have only now realized that people might start showing up, and they are beginning to repaint the towers of the lift, and attempt to make things look a bit better. It's just too bad that you have to take the lengthy chair lift to get there.

The reason being that the incline railway, which is little more than a flatbed on a rail track, isn't working. I'm not sure you'd want to risk your life on this monster anyway, as rusty and dangerous as it looks, but at least you wouldn't have to see the apparent sewer pipe that runs next to the track and has come loose, draining water by the gallon onto the foliage of the mountainside. At least that part is well-covered by all the fertilizer.

Once you arrive at the top of the lift, you need to hustle off, because they don't tend to stop the chair lift like some ski resorts will. The entire ride, not a single stop was felt. This is both good and bad. Good because you don't want to prolong it, but bad because there are kids here, and some of them are flat-out terrified at the prospect of this chair lift, and when it doesn't even slow down, it's just worse.

At the top of the mountain, you're greeted by the famous Ghost Town roller coaster, which at the moment is inoperable. Supposedly, the ride was going to be running by June 11, but there's no word if that's actually the case or not. When we were there, they were offering a $5 discount on tickets because of this - it's still overpriced by a long, long ways.

Further up the mountain, you get to the actual ghost town, which is about all that there is to do. In the town, there are two saloons - the Silver Dollar, which offers musical shows a few times a day and bad humor from the master of ceremonies. To make matters worse, they offer overpriced food, a menu board that doesn't offer everything listed (specifically hot chocolate - nice on a chilly day) and what they do have is way overpriced.

As if to drive a stake through your heart, the dancing girls are almost weighed down with cheap garters, which they will sell to you for just $1 each, and the colors are not likely to have been seen in any self-respecting saloon. The shows at Tweetsie Railroad are better, and more importantly, leave you feeling less like you're being led to slaughter.

By stepping outside, you get to enjoy the one thing on the mountain that is worth enjoying - the gunfight. At least, for a minute or thereabouts. Because while the outlaws are walking down the street, it's almost fun. You get to see those varmints coming down the street and wonder just what's going to happen.

Then the narrator - yes, they have a narrated gunfight, offered by the same guy who was the fun behind the show in the saloon - tells you just what is going on, in case you can't figure out what is happening when everyone starts shooting at each other. He also introduces you to Digger, the town mortician, who gets $15 per body, and offers a bit of comic relief, which is helpful, because if you're standing in the wrong place you may have had your eardrums blown out - mine are still ringing.

One good thing can be said about the show, and that's the variety. Each time the show runs, they do something a little different, which might be falling off a building, robbing the bank, or just plain walking down the street and shooting each other. Of course, the good guys always win, but at least it's a break from having to pony up some money for the overpriced goods in all the shops. Perhaps that's the real cause of the robberies - these outlaws were probably visitors to the park the last time it was open to the public.

After all the goings-on, we headed to the other saloon, just in time to see the bluegrass band finish up the lengthy five-minute set, and so we missed them for the day, and not wanting to spend another $3 on a minute bag of popcorn or wish we could order hot chocolate that they advertise but don't have, we instead decided to check out the town graveyard.

Unfortunately, there were only a dozen or so of the tombstones, and it seemed like half of them said "went to a necktie party" on them, while the others read creative things like... "four slugs from a fourty-four, no more no less". Uh, shouldn't that be "no less, no more"? At least then it would rhyme. Even our 12-year old figured that out after a bit of prompting. About then we decided that we'd get a bite of free fudge at the confectionary, and head over to the kiddie rides.

Unfortunately, all the kiddie rides were closed too, and even the shooting gallery was a bit hit-or-miss (and it wasn't just our shooting to blame). The guns were some sort of infrared variety, and so you couldn't really tell if they were shooting at all - you just had to hope they were, and generally it seemed that they weren't. Of course, no one could be found, and if they were, I don't get the feeling that you'd get your money back.

On up the hill we went, to try and find the Indian lodge, which was (you guessed it) closed. The Indians, intrepid souls that they were, had set up stage in the driveway outside, and though no one wanted to sit down in the twenty or so chairs, they did have a crowd, because people were hanging out to see the authentic dances. Well, because the "Indians" were wearing basketball shorts and sweats and talking like regular old people, it lost a bit in translation - but at least they were having fun. In fact, it was the best section of all, which isn't saying a whole lot.

About this time, the skies really opened up, so we headed back to the upper deck of the chair lift, and caught the shuttle bus back to the base. Though we had saved $5 on the ticket because the roller coaster was closed, I have to say that the ticket could have been free and it wouldn't have been worth it. Don't waste your time.

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