“The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak” will be a tiptop addition to any Disneyana fan’s library

Jim Hill

17 years ago

Given that the Disney theme parks are now home to a plethora of peaks (i.e. The Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Mt. Mayday, Summit Plummit, Grizzly Peak, Mt. Prometheus and Forbidden Mountain), it may seem somewhat bizarre to hear that there was actually a time when the Magic Kingdom was virtually mountain-free.

Oh, sure. There was Disneyland‘s Holiday Hill. Which you can see circled in red in the photo below …

… But the Magic Kingdom’s first mountain wasn’t all that magical. Truth be told, this was just where all the dirt that was left over from Disneyland’s initial construction phase had been bulldozed into a single pile. Bill Evans and his landscaping crew had done what they could to camouflage this unsightly mound. But given that it was located right next to Sleeping Beauty Castle, this lightly planted pile of earth was still something of an eyesore.

But Walt … He saw potential. If not in Holiday Hill itself, then in its location. As Jason Surrell recounts in his excellent new book, “The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak” (Disney Editions, September 2007) …

… a studio employee came across Walt sitting on a bench between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, just staring off into space. “What are you looking at?” the employee asked. “My mountain,” Walt replied.

Surrell then walks you through how the Matterhorn came into being. How workers from American Bridge — following a design that WED and Arrow Development cobbled together — turned 500 tons of steel and cement into a 1/100th scale version of that Alpine peak.

That’s one of the real strengths of “The Disney Mountains.” The way that Jason first makes you aware of all of the construction challenges that each individual project presented. Then he tells you about how the Imagineers went about solving those problems (Which — in the case of the Matterhorn — involved cutting 2,175 girders to different lengths so that they could then be assembled into a support structure that roughly resembled the famous mountain).

Of course, another fun aspect of this 128-page paperback is getting to see some seldom-seen WDI development art. Take — for example — this John Hench drawing from the mid-1960s. Which shows what the interior of what was then known as the Space Port could have possibly looked like. Check out the snazzy 1950s-style fins on all of the coaster cars that are rolling through this drawing.

Mind you, Surrell doesn’t just talk about the mountains that actually made it off of WDI’s drawing boards. He also gives his readers lots of great information about high profile projects that didn’t make it into the Disney theme parks. Infamous attractions like Disneyland’s Big Rock Candy Mountain or — better yet — WDW’s Thunder Mesa …

… Which is an attraction that was proposed for the Magic Kingdom back in the 1970s that JHM readers should be pretty familiar with.

Anyway … Jason uses his knowledge of what’s buried down deep in WDI’s archives to show us these critical moments in Disney theme park history. Like when Tony Baxter proposed that the runaway train portion of the Thunder Mesa project be separated from the “Western River Expedition” attraction. Which led to the creation of Big Thunder Mountain Railway.

These are the sorts of surprises that you’ll find as you read “The Disney Mountains.” Peeks at ride vehicles that never built (Like this early lashed-together-log-raft that was originally proposed for Splash Mountain) …

… Or — better yet — concept paintings that show radically different configurations of the exteriors of these attractions …

… Or even entire sequences that were originally proposed for these “Disney Mountain” attractions but then dropped. And speaking of dropping … Think about how much scarier “Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain” would be today if that runaway train ride still featured the scene pictured below. Where your tea train traveled across a rickety old bridge that spanned an impossibly deep chasm.

It’s illustrations like this — plus the great stories that go with them — that make “The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak” a must-buy for all you Disneyana fans out there.

So make some space now on that bookshelf where you keep Surrell’s other earlier Disney-theme-park-related books (i.e. “The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies“). Because once you get a peek at “Imagineering at Its Peak,” you’re really going to want a copy of your very own.