Last week we discussed the design dilemma that accompanied Walt's dream project. One of Walt's crazy ideas about replacing Holiday Hill was to just put some snow up here and somehow turn this into like a toboggan ride or a sled ride. Admiral Joe Fowler pointed out that Anaheim is too hot for snow and it's going to melt and create flooding. That didn't stop uncle Walt! He eventually figured out how to put snow in this location. A Disney cast member walked up and saw Walt sitting on a bench inside of Tomorrowland and he was staring up in an empty sky. The cast member asked Walt what he was staring at and Walt replied "my mountain". Needless to say Walt had a vision and even though a thrill ride went against his early design principle: everything should be accessible to every guest. Eventually Walt would find his vision of a mountain in 1958 when he visited the set of Third Man on the Mountain. As a result there is snow today inside of Anaheim every single day of the year and it's also one of the tallest structures inside of Anaheim. Matterhorn is one of the few attractions that's visible from outside the berm where guests going up and down Harbor and over on Highway 5 can catch a glimpse of the Matterhorn and its snowy peak as it rests above as the tallest lookout of Disneyland. Walt Disney would be inspired by The Matterhorn over in Europe and both the monorail and the Matterhorn are two things that Walt Disney was inspired to create by traveling through Europe.
Walt sent a postcard of the Matterhorn from Europe and it read: build this. Admiral Joe Fowler said fine we'll build it but it has to do something to justify taking up both space and budget from Disneyland. So the idea was not just one roller coaster but to build two inside! Stay close for part 3. One of the original women on the Disneyland design team was Miss Harriet Burns, the creator of the Matterhorn model and sculpture. The history and design of Disney's first mountain, the Matterhorn and the world's first ever tubular steel roller coaster. Walt Disney's vision for what he wanted Disneyland to be was absolutely so unique and so special for the time. It's a template that still holds up today not only in Disney Parks but theme parks all around the world. And like everything with Disneyland it's a little jigsaw puzzle, an incredibly small theme park located in the city of Anaheim which wasn't a city when Disneyland opened. It was farm country but a city accidentally sprouted up all around it. Because it is a jigsaw puzzle every piece of the puzzle somehow has to fit into the one next to it. Everyone knows how small Sleeping Beauty Castle is by comparison to Cinderella castle in Orlando. The idea was to make Walt's Castle, the original Disney Castle, feel as tall as possible. Therefore they took all the ground around to create a mound for it to set on. After All Disneyland was built inside of one year! In 1954 this Orange Grove would transform into Disneyland now visited by millions of people all around the world and it was done on an incredible budget. If you dig out all of the earth to create the moat around the castle and also pad it up on a pedestal, there's a lot more dirt left over. Two stories of dirt which became Holiday Hill, place some benches a little bit of flowers and slight design decoration and now you have a lookout point. Walt Disney absolutely hated Holiday Hill! It was just a pile of dirt in his park and not exactly what he envisioned. He knew he could do better as always held himself to a higher standard.
Along the way trying to figure out what to do with this parcel of land, he came up with some pretty crazy ideas. If you notice the monorail pedestals in front of the Matterhorn are extremely short compared to the ones that are on the back of the Matterhorn to make the peak of the mountain feel even taller. We'll discover Walt's design solution in part two. Two giant gorillas, occupying a region of the Jungle Cruise's rivers of Africa in the early half of the 20th century, were presumably hostile and described as being roughly 600 pounds with an arm-spread of 8 feet. The gorillas used to appear right before the, "Return to Civilization", in the part of the ride now representing the Amazon Rainforest. The gorillas were removed after 1968 with the rough space it occupied. The gorilla animatronics were repurposed in 1978 to represent the Yeti, "Harold" in the rollercoaster Matterhorn Bobsleds with new fur and a face mould by Blaine Gibson. In 2015, this audio-animatronic was removed and replaced with a more updated model. One of the gorilla audio-animatronic was moved to Disney's California Adventure theme-park to the attraction Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!, still appearing as the yeti. Reemploying animation figures is common at Walt Disney imagineering; some of the audio-animatronics from Nature’s Wonderland are now part of Big Thunder, and almost all America Sings audio-animatronics are in Splash Mountain. The 1977-78 major refurbishment of the Jungle Cruise had legendary imagineer Mark Davis working on its upgrade. Part of Mark’s new show for Disneyland included the Gorilla Camp with the tents, overturned jeep, and the family of gorillas unpacking and turning the camp inside out. 1978, the imagineers were also working on another major refurbishment: the Matterhorn. New Bobsleds were being added along with new track, and better brakes for the splash down. It was also decided to put some show in the interior, mostly for the Skyway buckets passing through the Matterhorn. The Bobsleds could see the new icy interiors and crystals as well the very famous Disneyland abominable snowman. Riders can see remnants of the Wells Expedition, a tribute to Frank Wells, the one time president of the Walt Disney Company. Click the arrow to view the slideshow! The Matterhorn is my brother's favorite ride at Disneyland. Making the Mountain Walt Disney fell in love with the real Matterhorn while filming the 1959 live-action film Third Man on the Mountain. Back at Disneyland Park, Walt decided to cover a forested 20-foot-high mound named Holiday Hill with artificial snow, add a toboggan run and rename it Snow Hill. However, Walt always dreamed big, and the “hill” soon grew into a 147-foot-tall mountain. The attraction opened on June 14, 1959. Totally Tubular Matterhorn Bobsleds was the first roller-coaster-style attraction at Disneyland Park—and the very first tubular steel coaster in the world. The iconic attraction is also one-of-a-kind—no other Disney park can claim a Matterhorn mountain. There are 2 bobsled tracks: 1 on the Fantasyland side of the mountain and the other on the Tomorrowland side. During slower periods, only a single track may be in operation. Matterhorn mountain certainly looks like its counterpart in the Swiss Alps— partially thanks to the excellent use of forced perspective. However, the peak is just a bit lower than the original—it’s exactly 100 times shorter than the 14,700-foot-tall real thing. More than 800 gallons of paint were used to create heavier snowfall on the north-facing—just like the real Matterhorn. Glass beads on the façade glitter like actual snow! Climb into a 6-person bobsled and brace yourself against howling winds as you ascend 80 feet up into an icy cave. Take in the sweeping views at the summit and prepare for a thrilling, high-speed ride. Swoop in and out of shadowy caves and along jagged rocky ledges. Throttle through snowy chutes and around frozen precipices. Fly across bridges and under waterfalls before splashing down into an alpine lake. The real peril is not snow or sleet! Stories abound of a growling creature known as the Abominable Snowman—who will do anything and everything to protect his home. FUN FACT: Ride time 2:30 minutes. Top speed 27 mph |
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