Wild Mountain is a recreation area in Taylor’s Falls, MN. During the winter it is a ski resort but when the snow is gone during the summer it becomes a water park! The water park is the main summer attraction here, but there are some other activities that they call “dry rides” as well.

How to Get to Wild Mountain

To get to Wild Mountain you just need to head north from Taylor’s Falls (about an hour outside the Twin Cities). You will take county highway 16 which follows the St. Croix river for about 7 miles out of Taylor’s Falls.

Wild Mountain is located right off the road and you should see sign alerting you to it as you drive up. When you arrive you will pull into the parking lot and see the lodge build at the end of the lot. That is where you will get your tickets.

There are a few ticket options, but the Superday pass which was $38 at the time of this writing is the best option. This will allow you to ride the water and dry rides as many times as you want.

What You will do at Wild Mountain

There is quite a bit to do at Wild Mountain. We arrived early and chose to do the dry rides first while we were already dry and then do the water attractions later when it got hotter.

Dry Rides

There are three dry rides at Wild Mountain. The alpine slide, the go-kart track, and the free fall experience. The alpine slide has you riding a ski lift up to the top of the mountain to ride a wheeled sled down a concrete track. The Go-Kart track is a pretty good size and you will race with about seven other karts. The free fall experience was closed when we were there, but I think it is just falling backwards off a platform on to a giant air bag.

Of the two dry rides we did we definitely liked the alpine slide the best. This was something that I had wanted to try for a long time but often riding them is really expensive. The wheeled sleds have a brake control so that you can control your speed if you are nervous. It is really fun to go whooshing down the mountain.

We also enjoyed driving the Go-Karts. I did lose my hat on the track though as I came around the last turn. The workers helped my retrieve it though. You have to be 54in to drive yourself but children as small as 36in can ride with an adult.

Water Attractions

There are two areas of water attractions at Wild Mountain. The first as the tower with four big water slides. The second is a water play structure with a lazy river.

On the tower with the four slides there are three tube slides and one non-tube slide. The non-tube slide is called the “Black Hole” and was not our kind of ride. The tube slides were more our speed. But be aware the one called big country is not a tradition slide as it has “pond” areas where you just kind of float along and you can end up getting stuck or running into other tubes.

In the play area we really liked riding around on the lazy river. We did not have Lucy with us at the water park so we didn’t really experience the play structure area, but it appeared to be very similar to other ones we have been to.

Sum Up

Wild Mountain was a fun place for us to spend a summer day. It is not too expensive and has a variety of things to do. The alpine slide was probably our favorite thing that we did there. It is not Disneyland though, and we definitely felt like there could have been better customer service and environment. Particularly as we were there during a pandemic we felt they could have done more to enforce the safety measures they claimed to have in place.

There are tents you can rent out if you are having a big party, but any unrented tents are available for anyone. These tents all have lots of picnic tables where you can leave your things. There are bathrooms/changing rooms inside the lodge for when you are switching between wet and dry rides.