Coasting Through the Hills- the best almost-mountain coasters across the world

When you think of classic theme park icons, what comes to mind is probably along the lines of old-timey streets leading to enchanting fairytale castles, pirate ships hinting at elaborate adventures, and runaway trains coursing through some kind of mountainous or rocky terrain. Sure, these towering mountains weren’t exactly created by Mother Nature, but the combination of carefully crafted rockwork, elaborate storytelling and track that winds through every twist and turn makes for an experience that even real-life alpine coasters can’t match, and have become commonplace in a range of large theme parks across the world.

Board your mine train car, pull down your restraint and join me as we explore the some of the “wildest rides in the wilderness” at our favourite parks throughout the world!

Matterhorn Bobsleds, Disneyland

“One thing is for certain, as long as human nature draws people to mountains, Imagineering will continue to build them!”

Tony Baxter, Senior Vice President of Creative Development, Walt Disney Imagineering

Where better to start off this list than at the park that started it all? Disneyland let down its castle drawbridge to welcome guests on 17th July 1955, and after a rocky opening day, (learn more about this by checking out the post linked below!), grew to become one of the most well-known attractions not just in North America, but around the world. Walt Disney and his Imagineers were pioneers for many of the things we consider iconic to theme parks today, including the very concept of theme parks in general, but when the decision was made to open the parks’ first ever rollercoaster in the late 1950s, it’s unlikely anyone could have predicted the impact it would make.

The new coaster would be constructed on the former site of Disneyland’s Holiday Hill, which had become a spot for teenagers to do some, well, not very magical things while their younger siblings were enjoying the park, and would give these teenagers something a little more family-friendly to do at the Most Magical Place on Earth. But not only did the project expand the target audience for the park, it also expanded the offerings of the rollercoaster market and left a lasting impact on the industry. Up until this point rollercoasters had been built only of wood, but with it’s new-for-1959 coaster, Disneyland brought steel into the world of coasters!

Walt Disney consulted ride manufacturer Arrow Development, who had built many of Disneyland’s other early attractions, and work soon began on Matterhorn Bobsleds, the world’s first tubular steel rollercoaster, housed inside a huge, fibreglass replica of the Matterhorn mountain in Switzerland! Matterhorn Bobsleds first opened on June 14th, 1959, simulating the experience of riding a bobsled through one of Europe’s most famous mountains. Although riders don’t actually sled through real snow like Walt Disney first envisioned, the experience is made authentic by the incredible rockwork makes up the attraction, as well as an intimidating animatronic yeti that probably isn’t as iconic as the one on Expedition Everest, but still an integral part of the ride nonetheless.

Some riders say that over the years, Matterhorn Bobsleds has become a rough and uncomfortable ride (though maybe this adds to the authenticity of riding a bobsled!), but, painful or not, this revolutionary mountain coaster is still a classic part of the Disneyland experience, and continues to pave the way for a range of other rockwork-based attractions around the world!

Wonder Mountain’s Guardian, Canada’s Wonderland

Canada isn’t exactly known for its major theme parks, and didn’t actually have any big parks until Canada’s Wonderland opened in 1981. At the time of its construction, many locals were strongly opposed to the project, then called Paramount Canada’s Wonderland, concerned that the park would be damaging to the area and bring in unwanted aspects of US culture. Still, construction continued as planned, and Paramount Canada’s Wonderland first opened its doors in the early 1980s, welcoming 12,000 visitors with a grand opening ceremony containing 10,000 balloons, 13 parachutists and over 300 doves.

Today, and even when it opened, Canada’s Wonderland puts some of the US’s major parks to shame in the way of theming and providing an immersive experience for all the family, and this begins even as you first enter the park. Just behind the front entrance, visitors are greeted by a flowerbed arranged to resemble the Canadian flag, and a long fountain leading up to the park’s equivalent of Cinderella Castle at the end of Main Street, a large synthetic mountain named Wonder Mountain!

Wonder Mountain is the icon of Canada’s Wonderland and the first thing that catches your eye as you enter the park, but this isn’t the only thing that makes this stunning piece of theming so special. As you’re probably expecting from the title of this post, Wonder Mountain is home to a rollercoaster!

Plans for a ride housed inside the mountain had been brewing among park officials since 2004, when the success of Scooby Doo’s Haunted Mansion (now Boo Blasters!) had led National Amusements, who owned the park at the time, to consider building another interactive dark ride.

For a number of reasons the plans never came to fruition. That was, until 2011, when a new dark ride began planning and production for Wonder Mountain, and this time it would be more thrilling and more interactive than the plans in 2004 could have dreamed of. In late July 2013, the most observant fans of the park spotted construction work taking place on the Western side of the Mountain, and it wasn’t long before Cedar Fair, who had owned the park since 2006, officially announced what was being built inside the park’s icon. Wonder Mountain’s Guardian was revealed on Toronto’s breakfast news show Breakfast Television in August 2013, and further exciting details about the attraction at IAPPA of that year.

Although incorporating some aspects of the interactive dark ride it was originally meant to be, Wonder Mountain’s Guardian introduced a new element to the concept: thrill. Riders join King Adelsten as he comes to the mountain to fight the dragon Omarr, and it isn’t long before the King loses his hat, and needs your help to retrieve it. You can do this by shooting the ride’s built-in laser guns at the surrounding screens, and soon your train takes you into an underground city known as the Draconian City in an attempt to escape from the evil dragon, and as a drop track lowers you and your fellow riders out of the city, you coast down a 30ft drop back into the station.

What makes Wonder Mountain’s Guardian truly unique is that each part of the ride experience offers something for almost every kind of rider- thrillseekers can get their dose of screams on the drop, the competitive ones in your group can compete to get the highest score and earn their place in the “Wonder Mountain’s Guardian Hall of Fame” and those who love detailed storytelling can get their fix too!

Expedition Everest, Animal Kingdom

Now let’s take an ‘expedition’ to Walt Disney World’s forth and newest theme park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom! This incredible park was the brainchild of Imagineer Joe Rhode, who wanted to create a theme park centring around the magic of nature and the importance of conservation, and today you can get up close and personal with their favourite animals on Kilimanjaro Safaris, experience the story of the Lion King with an energetic musical performance, and glide on the back of a banshee in Pandora (if you can bear to wait in the endless queue!), but there is one attraction has been an icon of the park since its opening, and that is Expedition Everest. Well, the ride’s full name is Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, but that’s a bit of a mouthful and Expedition Everest sounds better on its own anyway!

By the early 2000s, Animal Kingdom had been entertaining guests for several years, and although there were plenty of great attractions at the park, there had yet to be something that truly blew guests (and the loose articles some people bring onto rides!) away. This would come in the form of a record-breaking new rollercoaster, that didn’t exactly break the boundaries of what coasters could do, but really pushed the limit of how just far a theme park would go in order to create immersive experiences for its visitors.

• 

Construction on the project began soon into the early to mid 2000s, after Imagineers took real -life adventures to the Himalayas to gain inspiration for the project, and at the back of the park’s Asia section, the framework for a rockwork mountain could be spotted getting taller and taller. The mountain would become Disney’s tallest ever artificial mountain to date, and one of the largest structures in Walt Disney World as a whole, at 199.5ft- buildings in the area cannot be built over 200ft without having a little warning light at the top to warn planes! However, the track goes a little lower at 112ft.

The ride was officially announced as Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain on 22nd April 2003, a Vekoma custom family coaster taking riders on a thrilling journey through a mountain oddly not modelled after Mount Everest- it is the fictional Forbidden Mountain instead!

In February of 2006, two months before Everest’s opening, Disney launched a massive publicity stunt in New York’s Times Square. Five acrobats and a rock climber from the dance company Project Bandaloop took over the square performing twists and twirls high above the ground, and this show was named Everest in the City. It certainly brought more attention to the rollercoaster that would open in Animal Kingdom just a few months later, and when Expedition Everest opened to the public, it was a huge success.

Expedition Everest takes guests on a thrilling journey through the heights of the Himalayas, first taking you through an elaborately designed queueline, then on a slow climb up the lifthill. Riders twist and turn through Everest’s theming, but, just as you think your journey might be normal and uneventful, you reach a stop in the ride where the track has been broken and warped, and you are sent cascading back into the mountain where you come face to face with a giant audio-animatronic yeti that tries to pounce on you and rip up the track in its anger.

The track isn’t the only thing the yeti seems determined to destroy though, as when it is in its full functioning state, or A-Mode, it can be seriously damaging to the mountain. In March 2009, less than years after its opening, cracks were found in the mountain’s foundations, which, if left unattended to, could have posed irreparable damage to the ride. It was soon discovered that, likely due to its weight and large movements, the yeti animatronic was what was causing this damage, and the decision was made to put the yeti into B-Mode, so that it would not place any more unnecessary stress on Everest’s foundations.

Today, the yeti uses strobe lighting to make it seem as if it really is going to tear apart the track, earning it the nickname Disco Yeti. At 2013’s D23 Expo, Joe Rhode swore that he would fix the yeti, but eight years later no work has been done on the attractions, so it looks like this disco-dancing audio animatronic will continue to look fabulous in its strobe lighting until further notice!

Big Thunder Mountain, Disneyland Paris

Since 1979, there has been a certain coaster that practically defines Disney’s theme parks, and that is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. At the time of its opening, mine train coasters were rapidly growing; Arrow Dynamics were blazing the trail for a new market of rollercoasters, which instead of thriving to be the tallest, fastest, or have the most inversions, would be aimed at a different audience: an audience looking for a slightly lower level or thrill, or who couldn’t quite reach the height requirement to ride the larger coasters yet. Many parks installing Arrow Mine Trains would go the extra mile with theming, crafting elaborate stories to entertain riders as they twisted, turned and dipped through the ride.

When Disneyland jumped on the mine train trend, they went all out, replacing the much more relaxed Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland with an exhilarating adventure through the fictional town of Rainbow Ridge, and it wasn’t too long before the new rollercoaster, named Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, became an icon of Frontierland, and of Disneyland itself. The other Disneyland-style park that existed at the time, Magic Kingdom, received a version of the coaster just a year later in 1979, and when Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris opened later on, they also received versions.

Fast forward to the early 1990s; Imagineering were creating plans for the first and only European Disney park, and they knew it needed to be something special, for a completely different audience. It was decided that the classic formula for the traditional Disney parks should be completely reimagined- particularly in Fantasyland, which with its old European-style architecture wouldn’t appeal as much in Europe, and Tomorrowland, which quickly and consistently outdates itself and becomes the land of past rather than the future. Euro Disneyland opened in April 1994 as what is arguably the most beautiful Disney park in the world- every detail had been given meticulous attention and design, and, while it wasn’t too different from its original inspiration, Frontierland was given a lot of thought, and a lot of imagination.

In most parks with Frontierland as one of their main themed lands, Big Thunder Mountain is surrounded by other attractions, such as Splash Mountain in Magic Kingdom, or the Mark Twain Riverboat in Disneyland, meaning that while it still is a massive part of the land, it may not be what your eyes are drawn to when your first enter the land. Paris’ Frontierland is designed in such a way that everything centres around the rollercoaster, sure, there are other attractions in the land, but having been built on an island in the middle of the Rivers of America, Big Thunder Mountain is impossible to miss. This genius design builds up the excitement as you walk through the land and experience everything else it has to offer, so that after a while you will be super excited to ride “the wildest ride in the wilderness”!

Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, Indiana Beach

This unique rollercoaster-darkride hybrid may not be as well known as the other rides on this list, but it certainly has more to offer than its extremely long name and odd looking ride trains that look as if they’ve been taken straight from a fairground ride. Superstition Mountain made its debut in 1978, as a dark ride taking riders on a magical journey though the mountain, which was adorned with tunnels and special effects. There was one problem however, and that was the technology of the ride actually working. Due to the track being electrically powered, Superstition Mountain could not operate in the rain, leading to a LOT of downtime, and by the 2000s Indiana’ Beach’s owner at the time, Tom Spackman Jr, decided something needed to be done- and that something came in the form of a major renovation that would change the very nature of the attraction.

• 

2001 marked the beginning of the reimagining, as employees began disassembling parts of the attraction to prepare for the refurb that would take place the following year. At the time, Custom Coasters International were one of, if not the biggest manufacturer of wooden coasters out there, having built attractions like Boulder Dash at Lake Compounce and Ghostrider at Knotts Berry Farm, but this new project was completely different- taking an existing ride, and turning it into an action-packed rollercoaster that would deliver the same level of thrills of many other of CCI’s rides. I guess you could say it was similar to a coaster being RMC’d, before RMC was even popular! CCI took the challenge in their stride however, and certainly did not fail to deliver, creating a coaster with some seriously tight twists and turns that put even some of the world’s most intense rides to shame!

The new coaster, named Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, was announced at a media event in May 2002, as a unique type of rollercoaster taking riders on a much more thrilling adventure through Superstition Mountain, with the original rider-driven cars being altered in favour of an elevator lift at the start of the ride. Around a month later in June, the coaster began operation, and has remained one of the more popular, if obscure, rides at the historic park ever since. Just like “there’s more than corn in Indiana”, there’s certainly more to Indiana Beach than lakeside views and fairground rides!

Honourable Mention: Mount Prometheus, Tokyo DisneySea

This magnificent mountain doesn’t really fit in with the other attractions on this list, but with its 75,000 square feet of rockwork, and immaculate detail and theming, it’s just too impressive not to mention! Mount Prometheus was in the plans from the very beginning, when a version of the park was going to be built in Long Beach, California, though the mountain wouldn’t have been as impressive, and likely not a park centrepiece.

The project, named Port Disney, was never carried out, but when it was decided that it would instead be built as a neighbouring park to Tokyo Disneyland, the Oriental Land Company, who operate the resort, decided that Mount Prometheus should be a much more majestic and dominating presence in the park, leading to the construction of the mountain fans know and love today.

Mount Prometheus is one of the first things you see when you enter Tokyo’s second Disney park, standing as the centrepiece of Mysterious Island, a themed land mostly revolving around the history of Jules Verne’s novels, and acting as a kind of portal to Mediterranean Harbour, where it provides a stunning backdrop. While each of the mountains on this list are home to just one attraction, this one is home to two, and they aren’t small walkthrough attractions either: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth are both hugely popular rides, attracting massive queues from guests wanting to experience the magical worlds the rides bring to life.

Rides aren’t the only thing the mountain is known for however: Mount Prometheus is the only Disney mountain that isn’t actually a mountain- it is actually a volcano, and just like a real active volcano, it erupts! Ten major rocket boosters each weighing 3000 pounds, or 1361 kilograms, launch flames up to fifty feet into the air, making you feel as if you are witnessing a real volcanic eruption.

Tokyo DisneySea is arguably one of, if not the best, themed Disney parks in the world, and, like the park it is located at, Mount Prometheus is the perfect example of what can be when creativity is allowed to run wild!

What’s your favourite ride or rollercoaster built into a rockwork mountain? Do you prefer thrills or theming on a rollercoaster? Let me know in the comments below!

A massive thank you to @wewereinverted_ig and @happiesthollie on Instagram for the photo permissions- it was a huge help! Check them out here:

H O L L I E 💗 (@happiesthollie) • Instagram photos and videos

Patrick | We Were Inverted (@wewereinverted_ig) • Instagram photos and videos

Home | We Were Inverted | Roller Coaster Hang Out

If you enjoyed this article, check out my other posts from theme parks and attractions around the world, and find us on Instagram and Facebook for exclusive CoasterDreamers content and updates on the latest blog posts!

Subscribe to have all the CoasterDreamers articles delivered straight to your email inbox!

You are all clear… and outta here! Thanks for reading!

-Lily 🙂