The Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain is a wooden roller coaster at Indiana Beach in Monticello, Indiana, built inside and around a themed mine shaft mountain that has anchored the lakefront park for decades. Custom Coasters International completed the ride in 2002, reworking the aging Superstition Mountain Mine Ride dark ride that had operated on the same footprint since 1978 into a compact family wooden coaster with a genuinely unusual lift system.
Rather than climbing a traditional chain lift hill, trains are hoisted to height on an elevator before dropping into the darkened mountain interior, where they wind past animatronics, mining props, and a mid-course brake run featuring a character named Dynamite Willie shouting ‘Fire in the hole!’ as fake explosions go off. It was the final ride Custom Coasters International completed before the manufacturer went bankrupt, giving it a notable place in wooden coaster history.
Stats at a Glance
- Park: Indiana Beach
- Manufacturer: Custom Coasters International
- Opened: June 6, 2002
- Height: About 35 feet
- Top speed: About 20 mph
- Length: About 1,400 feet
- Inversions: 0
The Ride Experience
Riders board cage-enclosed cars built with a 2-across, 4-seat layout, two facing forward and two facing backward, a design CCI engineered specifically to handle the ride’s tight six-foot-radius turns inside the mountain structure. After the elevator lift raises the train, the layout mixes small airtime moments with sharp direction changes as it threads through three levels of the mountain, passing through the circular tunnel left over from the original 1978 dark ride.
The enclosed sections keep much of the course hidden from queuing guests, so the mine-shaft theming, lighting, and sound effects play a bigger role in the experience than sheer speed or height. At 35 feet tall and roughly 20 mph, it’s a modest, family-friendly ride, but its layout and show elements have made it a favorite among coaster enthusiasts for its novelty rather than its stats.
From Dark Ride to Wooden Coaster
Indiana Beach’s Superstition Mountain attraction dates back to 1978, when the mountain building housed a powered dark ride. In 2001, the park brought in Custom Coasters International to convert the aging attraction into a wooden roller coaster while preserving much of the mountain’s structure and theming, reopening it as the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain in June 2002.
The Gravity Group, formed by former CCI designers, has cited this ride’s compact, terrain-hugging layout as an influence on later projects, including Twister at Gröna Lund in Sweden. Decades later, the coaster remains part of Indiana Beach’s lineup, one of the few surviving examples of CCI’s late-era design work.
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Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain Photo Archive: June 2002
These are original ThrillZing photos of the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain taken at Indiana Beach on June 28, 2002, its first season, restored and upscaled from the original camera files. They show the CCI mountain’s rockwork, the elevator lift, and the track twisting through and over the structure. All photos are free to reuse under a CC BY 4.0 license with credit to ThrillZing and a link to this page.
Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain FAQs
Where is the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain located?
It’s located at Indiana Beach, an amusement and water park in Monticello, Indiana.
Who manufactured the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain?
It was built by Custom Coasters International, a wooden coaster manufacturer, and opened in June 2002.
Does the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain have a normal lift hill?
No. Instead of a chain lift, the ride uses an elevator to raise trains to the top of the course before they descend into the themed mountain.
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Photo: Chris Hagerman / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.