This is an absolutley amazing coaster. Amazing. I expected a small mine train like coaster... boy was I blown away! The ride starts with a small left turn out of the station and goes up the lift hill. What follows is an insane ride with amazing laterals. Its almost impossible to know which way your headed. The extremely thick woods dont help either. Even though the track is only 15 ft above ground level there are many huge drops. Boulders and smaller trees are even worked into the structure of this ride! The back seat is insane. It provides extreme laterals and negatives. When we hit the monster first drop I was thrown out of my seat and I swore Id be flung into the woods! The first drop WILL catch anyone of gaurd. Sadly Boulder Dash begins to slow down and is slowly lulled back into the station. Boulder Dash ends with some small bunny hops and a nice turn near the lake. Im sorry for this relatively short review. Its hard to review such a disorienting, confusing ride. Once again, I feel that I cant do this amazing ride justice. Sorry!

this is the best wooden coaster i have ever ridden. it has the coolest layout based in the moutin side. and the speed well on wood 60mph and up is awasome. the air time is great as well. Since the gci rework this coaster is now nothing short of amazing. It has tons of airtime smooth and feels so fast. It really is a top 5 coaster now in just about anyones count!!!

The Lake Compounce Boulder Dash is the epitome of creative thought! By using the mountain side, the designers saved millions of dollars on wood for the structure of this (almost mile long) behemoth. Also, by racing through the forest, youre never quite sure where youre going next.

Make sure you ride this coaster several times, it changes a lot in the course of one day. Early in the day rides are fairly mild, while later in the day rides seem to be much faster than the 60 MPH it is supposed to achieve. Curiously, Boulder Dash feels as "out of control" as any woodie, yet is probably the smoothest wood coaster Ive ever ridden. Usually you need that roughness for that "out of control" feeling.

Boulder Dash is truly the wood coaster king of the northeast, a worthy successor to the Mountain Park Mountain Flyer and SFNEs Cyclone.

Fast and smooooooth... a beautiful ride, in a beautiful park.

Unbelievable. I dont know of a more appropriate word for this coaster - Im sure to fail at doing it justice with this review. Heres my main piece of advice here - ride it at night if you can, and if its been raining, all the better. It had been fun during the day, but when night fell, and I hit the back seat, all hell broke loose. The coaster had seriously warmed up, and defended itself with such a vicious nature that I hardly knew how to handle it. The lift hill is laid out with such genius - it heads up into the woods, and you cant remotely guess whats in store for you. From there, it rockets into a beautiful first drop, and sends you into such unbelievable, shuddering speed - all the while roaring through perfectly executed hills, zooming by boulders, trees and all manner of nature. I was screaming like a little kid, and not for the fun of it - this coaster is as close to terrifying as you can get. Its speed never, ever lets up - no lulls in this one. In fact, Id swear that it picks up speed as it goes, and toys with its riders for the fun of it. If coasters have souls (and I think many of them do), Boulder Dash has one full of spit and vinegar - Id swear its out to kill you.

Oh, and as far as my recommendation for riding after nightfall - this is an absolute must. The coaster offers no lighting at all, and the effect is chilling. Not knowing quite whats ahead, and adding near-pitch darkness to the equation, is downright criminal at the vicious speeds Boulder Dash attains. Completely OUT OF CONTROL. Oh, and heres a plus - as we returned, shaken and disturbed, to the station, we realized that the last ride of the night was pending, and we got to ride AGAIN. We took the second car, and it was just as haggard.

Ride this coaster, ride this coaster, RIDE THIS COASTER!!! Make the long road trip, book a plane, do whatever you have to do - its utterly unmissable, and a must-do on any coaster lovers list of life experiences. You just cant die happy without having done so.

This could be terrain woodie perfection. The first drop is spectacular (especially in the back where your out of your seat for almost the whole drop!) . The speed is out of this world and it seems like you pick up loads more as your train screams across the side of the mountain. The airtime is downright superb. Every hill at least gives a little and some launch you into the lapbar, enough to make even the most seasoned park goer giggle with joy. I dont think there is another coaster on this planet that uses the natural terrain to its advantage as much as this ride does. It really feels like you are a falcon darting through the woods after dinner. Boulder Dash and the charm of Lake Compounce make this park a must for just about anyone out there who hasnt been.

This rides got it all: a heart-stopping first drop, insane initial speed that actually increases as the ride progresses, tons of airtime no matter where you sit, its neither too smooth nor too rough, its satisfyingly long (almost a mile!)etc. et al. BD is about as close to perfection as a woodie can get, and if thats not enough, the wait is almost never more than ten minutes. If you can, visit the park during its first full week of operation in the middle of June, there is NO line. My sister and I went this past June and rode it 34 times in a row without even having to switch seats. The ride never got boring and we couldve stayed on it all day!
BD is also a must at night in October during the Haunted Graveyard, when its pitch-black and you cant see a thing while on the ride, and it feels much faster than during the summer. There isnt a single light along its course. You can hear BD coming from across the lake, but you cant see it at all, as if it were a ghost. SPOOKY!

I thought that it was a very fun ride. It had a great combonation of air time and speed. Personatly it was not that scary, but it was very fun. I got really nervous at the first drop after you go up and it just goes straight. It was the first ride that I ever got nervous on. I have been on a lot of coasters too. It is my all time favorite woddie, after the gwazi in busch gardens tampa. It had amazing scenery, but as you know it was very hard to see. It was so cool how it was built on a mountain. My one costructive critosisim is that it was long. The amazing speed made it go much faster. 65 mph+!!! Thats really fast! It was a really fun coaster and I recomend it to all major coaster riders.

Edited on 7/25/04: its a great coaster and after much deliberation have changed my rating from a 9 to a 10. I initially had it as a 9 due to the inconsistency of the rides.

On 5/23/04 I rode it for the first time, make that 8 times. It was overcast and chilly so the park wasnt crowded at all. If I had stopped after 3 rides (front, back, middle) this rating would have been a 7 or 8. I really was not totally impressed. The airtime wasnt great (it bounced through some of the hills) and it didnt feel that out of control except for that last left turn out by the Sky Ride when I was in the back seat. But thats the dynamics of a woodie, every ride is a little different. Sometimes they have bad days, this one had a bad afternoon. But later in the day the coaster got better. I rode it five more times and all those rides were 9s or 10s. The best ride was when I was in the middle of the train with no one next to me and no one in the seats behind me in the same car. Lots of airtime on that ride. Id like to give props to Derrick, by far the most amusing/entertaining ride operator Ive ever encountered. Funny thing happened on my last ride, we got on the train at 7:45 (park closed at 8PM) but pulling at of the station it felt like we ran over somebody. Maintainence (Steve, Tom and Rob) came over and tried to get the ride started. The car didnt catch on the lift hill and we started sliding back to the station. The guys climbed under the train and couldnt get it fixed immediately. They kicked everyone off the platform and promised to get us our ride. I joked with the maintainence guys and said "what are you gonna do push us up the hill", he said "yep". With the help of 8 guys the rolled us back to the station gave us a running push and we snagged the lift chain and we were off. It took about twenty minutes so we ended up being the last ride of the day.

Wow!! This is the most exciting coaster I have ever been on. Having grown up going to Lake Compounce, I was thrilled to see the park receive a major upgrade a few years back which included a new wooden coaster...a rarity these days with the popularity of steel looping hypercoasters. The first ride on Boulderdash gave me a new all-time favorite, overtaking my former favorite, the similar but defunct Mountain Park Mountain Flyer.
The banked first drop is a heartpounding start to a ride that does not let go until the train reaches the break-run. Along the way the rider is treated to some amazing landscape...if just a blur at 60+ miles per hour. While the ride is is fast, it is quite smooth and offers plenty of air-time. An added thrill not intended by the designers are the various Falcons which have chosen to nest in the structure as well as in the trees surrounding the roller coaster itself. You may find yourself ducking spooked birds of prey as I found myself doing in the front seat this past summer.As for the best seat to ride in, all are good, however the front seat gives a breathtaking view of the first drop. So if you are in New England anytime soon, take a trip to Lake compounce and hold onto your hat on this amazing roller coaster!