America's Tallest Water Slide Is Coming to the Midwest in 2024

The ride will be fittingly named The Rise of Icarus.

Clearly, someone over at Mt. Olympus Water Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, is quite taken with Greek mythology. If the name of the park wasn't enough of a giveaway, the park's most recently announced waterslide is a dead giveaway. The slide, which is billed to be America's tallest waterslide, will be 145 feet tall and named The Rise of Icarus. It will open at Mt. Olympus in summer 2024. 

Yes, that Icarus. In the announcement of the new attraction, Mt. Olympus even recalled a bit of the lore on Facebook.

"As the Greek myth goes, Icarus soared too close to the sun on wings fastened to his body with wax, with the heat of the sun melting the wax and Icarus falling to the sea," the post states. "Here at Mt. Olympus you'll experience a much happier ending at the bottom of the slides!"

At least they are promising a happier ending than melting under the sweltering heat of the sun. Though, with the heat waves we've been experiencing, sometimes melting doesn't seem totally out of the realm of possibility.

new rise of icarus water slide mt olympus wisconsin dells
Courtesy of Mt. Olympus Resorts & Parks

The new ride is part of the park's $8 million expansion, which will include five new slides, and an outdoor children's area that will have 10 new slides. An excellent way to beat the heat; extreme or otherwise. I just hope they've figured out any potential lubrication issues for that gigantic slide—when Icarus was falling, there wasn't the surface friction of a plastic slide slowing him down.

In case you were wondering which US water slide currently holds the honor of our nation's tallest, according to the folks at WaterSlideDatabase.com, that would be Thrillagascar & Jungle Jammer at the DreamWorks Water Park in East Rutherford, New Jersey. That ride stands 142 feet tall, three feet shorter than The Rise of Incarus is set to stand.

You can check out ticket prices and more details about the water park over at MtOlympusPark.com.

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Opheli Garcia Lawler is a Staff Writer on the News team at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @opheligarcia and Instagram @opheligarcia.