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Action Park was a waterpark/motor themed park open from 1978 to 1996 in Vernon Township, New Jersey, on the property of the former Vernon Valley / Great Gorge ski area, today Mountain Creek. It featured three separate attraction areas: an alpine slide; Motorworld, where patrons could operate motorized vehicles on land and water; and Waterworld, with many water-based attractions such as waterslides. The latter was one of the first American waterparks. Many of Action Park's attractions were unique. They gave patrons more control over their experience than they would have at most other amusement parks' rides, but for the same reason were considerably riskier.

Its popularity went hand in hand with a reputation for poorly-designed, unsafe rides; inattentive, underaged, underpaid and sometimes under-the-influence employees; equally intoxicated and underprepared visitors — and the poor safety record that followed from this perfect storm of circumstances. At least six people are known to have died as a result of mishaps on rides at the park, and it was nicknamed "Traction Park", "Accident Park", "Class Action Park", "Danger Park" and "Death Park" by doctors at nearby hospitals due to the number of severely injured parkgoers they treated. While little action was taken by state regulators despite a history of repeat violations, in its later years personal-injury lawsuits forced the closure of more and more rides and finally the park itself. The new owner of the ski area has reopened the water attractions as Mountain Creek Waterpark, with a vastly increased emphasis on ride safety.

History

The park was born in the mid-1970s when Great American Recreation (GAR), new owners of the recently combined Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area, wanted to do something with the ski area during the off season. They followed the trend of many other ski areas at the time, and in 1977 began offering an alpine slide down very steep ski trails, then gradually put together Waterworld, one of North America's earliest water parks, at the base of the slopes.

They started out with two speed waterslides in the summer of 1978, and then more waterslides and a small deep-water swimming pool the next year. The early 1980s saw more slides along with a huge wavepool. Finally, Motorworld was carved out of the swampy areas the ski area owned across Route 94. Ultimately, the small park consisting of the Alpine Slide and two speed slides evolved to a major destination with 75 rides, including 35 motorized self-controlled rides and 40 waterslides.

GAR promoted its new attraction with television commercials in the New York metropolitan area, using the memorable jingle "The action never stops ... at Action Park!" (later, "There's nothing in the world like Action Park!" in several-part harmony). The park soon became a popular summertime weekend destination in and of itself, due to the level of control it offered visitors over their experience compared with most other amusement parks. Some visitors were not even aware that it was part of a ski area.

Action Park's most successful years were the mid-1980s. Most rides were still open, and the park's later reputation for danger had not yet developed. In 1982, the deaths of two visitors within a week of each other and ensuing permanent closure of one ride took place, but that hardly dampened the flow of crowds.

The park's fortunes began to turn with two deaths in summer 1984 and the legal and financial problems that stemmed from the lawsuits. A state investigation of improprieties in the leasing of state land to the resort led to a 110-count grand jury indictment against the nine related companies that ran the resort and their executives for operating an unauthorized insurance company. Many took pretrial intervention to avoid prosecution; head Eugene Mulvihill pled guilty that November to five insurance fraud-related charges. Still, attendance remained high and the park remained profitable at least on paper. The park entertained over a million visitors a year, with as many as 12,000 coming on some of the busiest weekends.

Park officials said this made the injury and death rate statistically insignificant. Nevertheless, the director of the emergency room at a nearby hospital said they treated from five to ten victims of park accidents on some of the busiest days, and the park eventually bought the township of Vernon extra ambulances to keep up with the volume.

A few rides were closed and dismantled due to costly settlements and rising insurance premiums in the 1990s, and at last the park's attendance began to suffer as the recession early in that decade reduced visitation. GAR was finally forced into bankruptcy in 1995, and Action Park closed at the end of the season as usual on September 2, 1996. It was assumed that it would reopen on Memorial Day weekend of 1997. Due to the problems in getting proper insurance, the park was unable to open at that point. They delayed the opening to mid June, but that date came and went and the opening was announced for the 4th of July weekend. By the end of June, however, it was determined that the park would not be open for the season. Therefore, the last day of operation was on Labor Day of 1996.

Alpine attractions

Alpine slide

Action Park's alpine slide descended the mountain roughly below one of the ski area's chairlifts, resulting in much verbal harassment and sometimes spitting from passengers going up for their turn, who would often be entertained by the accidents they witnessed while at the same time hoping to avoid similar fates.

The tracks themselves were made of concrete and fiberglass, which led to numerous serious abrasions on riders who took even mild spills. The tendency of some to ride in bathing suits so they could go on to Waterworld attractions afterwards made this problem worse.

The sleds themselves were a large factor in the injuries. A stick that was supposed to control speed led, in practice, to just two options on the infrequently maintained vehicles: extremely slow, and a speed described by one former employee as "death awaits."

This slide led to the first fatality at the park, a head injury suffered by an employee (it would later be referred to as the "Death Express"). Hay bales at the curves were meant to cushion the impact of those whose sleds jumped the track (a frequent occurrence), but did not always do so effectively. According to state records, in the years 1984 and 1985 the alpine slide produced 14 fractures and 26 head injuries. While park officials regularly asserted its safety, saying that 90-year-old grandmothers could and did ride it, in the early years of the park the slide was responsible for the bulk of the accidents, injuries, lawsuits and state citations for safety violations.

When Intrawest took over the park and renamed it Mountain Creek in spring 1998, they announced the slide would remain open for one final season. Riders were required to wear helmets and kneepads. The last day of the slide's operation was September 6 of that year, the day before the park closed for the season, as that year's Labor Day was rainy and the slide had to be closed.

The tracks were torn out afterwards, but the route can still be seen from the gondola that replaced the chairlift.

Skateboard park

A skateboard park briefly existed, near the ski area's ski school building, but closed due to poor design after a season. Bowls were separated by pavement, which in many cases did not meet the edges smoothly. Former park employee Tom Fergus was quoted in an article in the magazine Weird NJ saying that the "skate park was responsible for so many injuries we covered it up with dirt and pretended it never existed."

Grass skiing

Grass skiing was available the same summer the skate park was open. Grass Skiing was on the beginner and intermediate slopes under the Brown chairlift.

Motorworld

The park also had a section called Motorworld. It had powered vehicles and boats on the west side of Route 94. These closed with Action Park in 1996. They have been replaced with a condominium housing development. Several types of vehicles were used in this area:

  • Super Go Karts : The karts were meant to be driven around a small loop track at a speed of about 20 mph (32 km/h) set by the governor devices on them. But park employees knew how to circumvent the governors by wedging tennis balls into them, and were known to do so for parkgoers. As a result, an otherwise standard small-engine car ride became a chance to play bumper cars at 50 mph (80 km/h), and many injuries resulted from head-on collisions. Also, the engines were poorly maintained, and some riders were overcome by gasoline fumes as they drove.
  • LOLA cars : These were miniature open-cockpit race cars on a longer track. Extra money was charged to drive them, and they, too, could be adjusted for speed by knowledgeable park employees, with similarly harmful consequences to riders. Fergus said that, after the park management briefly set up a microbrewery nearby, employees looking for after-hours fun would break into it, steal the beer, and then ride the cars on Route 94.
  • Bumper boats : This ride was reserved for toddlers, supposedly since it was safer, but the engines often leaked gasoline, at least once requiring medical attention for one rider when too much got on his skin.
  • Super Speedboats : These were set up in a small pond, known by staff to be heavily infested with snakes. Th

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