Have you noticed that Walt Disney World features a lot of mountains? There’s Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain… mountains seem to be a fixture of Walt Disney attractions, and why shouldn’t they be? Mountains carry a sense of adventure, mystery, and excitement, and Disney Imagineers have been crafting creative stories and innovative ride experiences out of them for decades. To quote former Senior Vice President of Creative Development at Walt Disney Imagineering Tony Baxter, “One thing is for certain, as long as human nature continues to draw people to mountains, Imagineering will continue to build them!”
Still, when Disney Imagineers put their heads together to create an all-new roller coaster experience for Animal Kingdom — the Disney part most rooted in the natural environment and its unique feeling of exotic adventure — they knew they had to create something bigger, better, and more mythic than ever before. This time, they chose to conquer the one and only — Everest.
Expeditions to Everest: The History and Folklore
To create an epic Mount Everest experience for Disney guests, a team of Imagineers — led by Disney legend Joe Rohde — spent six years performing extensive research. They took numerous trips to the Himalayan region in Nepal, visiting cities and towns all around the famous mountains, photographing the stunning vistas and landscapes, and absorbing the local culture and folklore. They sought out local legends about the infamous Yeti and learned about that monster’s long and storied history in the mountains.
The Yeti, much like his Western folklore cousins the Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot, is a fierce defender of the natural world he calls home. Joe Rohde and crew quickly found out that the Yeti has a strong reputation and that he is no friend to wandering adventurers — or exploiting enterprises — who invade his territory. Clearly, their Yeti needed to be larger-than-life with a dangerous and thrilling presence sure to delight guests of all ages.
As the Imagineering team pieced together the legend of the Yeti, they also pieced together their own story centered around fictional entrepreneurs Bob and Norbu in the made-up town of Serka Zong at the base of the Himalayas. As the story goes, Bob and Norbu sought to create a booming tourist industry by transforming an abandoned tea plantation and offering visitors the opportunity to take a beautiful train ride through the mountains. Despite warnings from local villagers and rumors of a “lost” expedition back in 1982, they forged ahead with their mission — even building their train route right over the forbidden mountain.
The journey begins gently enough, but before long, guests make their way up the mountain where, to shock and horror and delight in equal measure, the track has been ripped up! Clearly, there is a beast here with superhuman power beyond imagining, but how will the guests escape? The train takes its screaming passengers backward back down the mountain as the beast rages, until, looming huge and terrifying before them, there he is — the Yeti! Swiftly the train resumes its forward motion and rushes guests to safety — just in time to escape the wrath of the protector of the mountains.
The Engineering, Design, and Innovation of Everest
To pull off such a thrilling and immersive story, Joe Rohde and the Imagineers had to push the fields of ride design and audio-animatronics further than they’d ever gone before. A ride that changes direction and a monster of mythic proportions? The Imagineers had their work cut out for them.
To achieve that terrifying mountain-top moment of racing away from the person — or beast — who has ripped up the tracks, Imagineers designed an automatic switch system. When the train reaches the end of the line, the track quickly and quietly switches back behind the riders. Then the ride gets moving again, and guests go careening back down the mountain along a different route than before, creating an all-new kind of stomach-dropping roller coaster experience.
The wild ride continues until, of course, the moment arrives — the beast is real! Towering over the riders is the hideous, the terrifying, the monstrous Yeti! He roars and rages, furious that his happy mountain home has been invaded once again!
Pulling off such an impressive audio-animatronic was no small feat. Expedition Everest’s Yeti stands 25 feet tall and has 19 actuators that allow it to move up to five feet horizontally and 18 inches vertically. In A-mode (the mode originally designed to operate while the attraction runs), this beast of engineering swings its massive arm and moves with true animal-like motion — guests feel they’re really in the presence of a monster!
Unfortunately, most likely due to a crack in the concrete foundation that supports the enormous animatronic, the Yeti has been stuck in his more stationary B-mode for the last several years. However, even though he no longer swings, the Yeti still makes for a terrifying figure! The ride features strobe lights that flash behind him, giving the appearance of motion, and earning the monster the infamous nickname, “Disco Yeti.”
The Legacy of Expedition Everest
Expedition Everest is a worthy addition to the canon of Disney mountains. It’s a wild and thrilling roller coaster, but still not too scary for Disney’s younger guests. It casts a spell with its immersive folklore-based storyline; riders find themselves whirling and swirling around in a world full of myth and legend, making the sight of the monster all the more thrilling and satisfying.
As if that weren’t enough, Everest’s feats of engineering — or, rather, imagineering — are among Disney’s most impressive. Even today, Everest is the thrill ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and its innovative use of track switching and animatronics make it a force of engineering unique even among Disney’s other incredible creations. Expedition Everest is a truly necessary part of any visit to Animal Kingdom — if you dare!
What’s your favorite Disney mountain?