In my humble opinion, Alpengeist is the best roller coaster out there. There are coasters that are faster, longer, and taller. But no coaster combines all factors together in such a seamless blend. It has everything you look for in a coaster; themeing, speed, and intensity. It has a unique and beautiful station house. The entrance area and station have a ski park feel. WIth funny touches like a skier buried to the waist in a building. There are even video games nearby that test your skiing ability.
Once you walk through the beautiful wood queue line and into the ski house station, you prepare yourself to ride the beast. Alpengeist, by the way, is a supposed monster that attacks you while you are on the mountain skilift. They put so much thought into this ride, that there are skis on the trains to make it look like a skilift. Once you board the very comfortable trains, you start heading up the massive lift hill. You go up to roughly 197 feet and then the fun begins.
You swoop down and to the right picking up some major speed(around 67 mph). Then you head into the first element, a massive Immelman. An Immelman is a great manuever named after an escape move used by fighter pilots. A famous German pilot, Max Immelman, created the move in WWI. It quickly became a basic manuever for pilots to learn. It is also now a great coaster element. Alpengeist pulls it off perfectly, you pull straight up, as if you are going into a loop, but instead of going all the way over you barrell roll over and then you bank down and to the left and then into a giant 100 ft tall vertical loop. Once out of that, you get sent into a huge cobra roll that sits out over water. You wont get much chance to take in the scenery up here, but off the ride it makes for a very nice picture from the right place. As you come out of the cobra roll(boomerang, batwing, or whatever you call it) it takes a shot upwards and through a mid-course brake run that is an important element to allow the ride to implement 3 trains if neccessary.
Once you come out of the brakes you are sent down under a bridge and then up into a zero-g roll, which it performs smoothly and quickly. You are then sent left and barrell roll over and into the start of a helix and is runs upon a snow covered trench. You then swoop to the right and then back to the left and back into the station.
The ride takes about 2 minutes and it is an intense but satisfing time. Like I said before, this ride blends all the factors of a roller coaster together in perfect form. This is the apex of inverted roller coasters and only a few (Montu, Raptor, and Nemisis) even come close.
Not only does this deliver better than any invert but I believe this is the perfection of roller coaster design all together.
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