Just over the Missouri border outside St. Louis in the southwest corner of Illinois you’ll find the town of Grafton with Aerie’s Resort and Aerie’s Alpine Coaster. This Wiegand mountain coaster opened in September of 2022 and is currently the only mountain coaster in Illinois. The coaster sports 3,885 feet of track in a beautiful resort setting that offers insane views of the Mississippi River below.

Aerie’s Resort is beautiful place of outdoor fun high above the banks of the Mississippi River. In addition to the mountain coaster, Aerie’s Resort also features a restaurant, Skytour, zip,ine, UTV adventure tours and onsite resort lodging. Aerie’s Resort claims to have, “The Best Views in the Midwest” and they might be right! To get to the resort during most of the year you’ll probably have to pay $10 to take a Grafton Skytour cable car from the river. However, in the winter it’s reversed and driving is the only way to get there. Speaking of winter, the site has a very robust schedule with the coaster operating Thursday through Sunday December until mid March. In the warmers months it also offers night rides which sounds like tons of fun!

The coaster station is a non-descript on the outside while the inside of coaster station itself is quite modern with your now typical iPad waiver stations , TV screens for safety videos and cameras. The crew was super friendly and being a weekday afternoon there was zero wait. I was able to stop around lunch on a random weekday while school was in session in late August while passing nearby on a business trip, so that probably had a lot to do with it too. It’s priced on par with most other mountain coasters at $18/ride or 3 rides for $36, but you do have the potential added cost of essentially being required to take the chair lift to the top.

The overall design of the coaster is like several I’ve ridden recently where the station is at the top of a hill and you start with a drop while the ride concludes with a long anti-climatic climb back up to the station. This is not the coaster designer’s fault as the resort complex is located on top of a hill after the cable car ride up, so there’s then nowhere to go but down. However, for me this takes away from the experience and the anticipation a climb can bring. The coaster part in the middle is great though, even if it is sort of a “paint by numbers” mountain coaster. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as if you’re the first mountain coaster in an area having a “greatest hits” of mountain coaster elements makes sense. I love too that they publish a map of the coaster course on their website too.

You start slowly out of the station with several s-turns and then pick up speed while graduating into some 90 degree and 180 degree hairpin turns. You continue to pick up speed (as there’s only one lift or block zone) before finally coming into a brake area before taking the lift hill back to the top. Nothing here is really dramatic and overall it’s a lot of fun with good speed and scenic views throughout the forested course. A 360 degree helix somewhere in the layout, perhaps toward the end, would have added another unique classic mountain coaster element, but maybe the topography wasn’t favorable for it? I was able to comfortably go near full throttle the whole course, but I was also alone on the track with no traffic to worry about. The course is not visible on the lift which adds some mystery the first time too.

Each cart also has a camera mounted on it and you can buy your video at the kiosk at the end for the very reasonable price of only $10 run by a company called Revl. Some stills from my video is below to give you a feel for the ride. Note the video will only be available for 30 days online, so be sure to download it rather than just using the link. I’d love to see more mountain coasters adopt the Revl service though as pictures and video in an automated kiosk is winner for everyone at this kind of price point.

Not to be missed here is the The Terrace Restaurant at Aerie’s Resort. This restaurant is very close to the coaster and has some of the best views on the property with large windows and a huge outdoor deck seating area. It also has a nice central bar with craft beers, wines and mixed drinks. The menu for lunch, isn’t huge but there are enough choices and variety for almost any diet or mood. The coaster staff recommended I try the bourbon bacon burger and it was a great choice. A burger and fries was $18, so not cheap, but it was tasty, made to order and a generous portion. The staff was also very friendly and a great lunch with a spectacular view can help make a complete day out of riding a mountain coaster.

Aerie’s Mountain Coaster is a great mountain coaster and it’s the best mountain coaster in Illinois (although it’s also the only mountain coaster in Illinois). Although I can’t point to any single standout moments or unique elements (other than the beautiful setting and Mississippi River Views), its a fun and everything you could want and love in a mountain coaster. If you find yourself in the St. Louis area or Southwestern Illinois in general it could be a worth a quick diversion to the Aerie’s Resort to check it out!