The History of Grizzly

Some coasters announce themselves from across the park. Grizzly does the opposite. This 1982 wooden coaster hides deep in the forest of Kings Dominion's Old Virginia section, where you cannot see it, cannot judge it, and cannot quite tell how close the trees really are.

Hidden in the woods

Grizzly was built to disappear into the trees. Most of its first half winds through existing forest, far from any path, and the thrill comes partly from the illusion that the track and the timber are closer than they can possibly be. It opened in March 1982, designed by Curtis D. Summers and built for the park's original owner, Taft Broadcasting. The famous covered tunnel near the bottom, by the way, is a ground-level shed, not the underground passage that local legend still insists on.

A coaster with ancestors

Grizzly's double-figure-eight layout is descended from a beloved lost ride, the Coney Island Wildcat in Cincinnati, a 1926 wooden coaster demolished in 1964. Taft happened to own that Cincinnati park too, which is why its Virginia coaster inherited the old Wildcat's shape. In the winter of 2022 and 2023 the ride got a major refurbishment from The Gravity Group, which retracked about a third of the course, steepened the first drop, and sent it back out under the slogan "Roar Restored."

Sister coasters

Grizzly is not the only coaster to carry the Wildcat's design. Its closest sibling is Wilde Beast at Canada's Wonderland, built a year earlier by the same designer from the same Cincinnati blueprint. A separate coaster also named Grizzly, at California's Great America, shares the ancestry but rides very differently. Kings Dominion's version is the one known for its airtime.

One thing to know

Local legend says Grizzly drops into an underground tunnel. It does not. The famous covered stretch is a ground-level shed.

Grizzly is one chapter in the fifty-year history of Kings Dominion.

Grizzly at a glance