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One of Disney’s latest and greatest new rides is the Everest Expedition.

It’s an interesting example that shows just how far the company goes to get the feeling right.

Here’s part of an interview with the lead designer on the project.

“Well yeah, there’s gobs of stuff. The village that
we’ve created at the foot of the mountain is really one of the best
environments I think we’ve ever built, certainly at Animal Kingdom,
I won’t speak of the rest of Imagineering because there’s fantastic
environments everywhere. But it’s quite an amazing environment. You
know, we don’t really do replications, right? We create our places,
we create our stories. But we want to create a place, that when
you’re walking around in it, you still have the sense that “man,
this feels like REAL!” We collaborated with Nepalese architects and
woodcarvers and designers in creating a lot of the wood carved
detail in all the windows and doors and walls, including a very
authentic Nepalese pagoda structure, it’s called a Mandir, dedicated
to the mythology of the Yeti. It’s probably the only structure of
its kind in North America. And this was designed and produced for us
by these Nepalese woodcarvers. We brought it here and erected it as
part of the queue, and it’s just this fantastic carved wood pagoda
structure, covered in carvings and images of the Yeti that we
developed in tandem, in partnership with these Nepalese artists, and
that was pretty cool! We never could have done that if we hadn’t
gone there, met them face to face, had these discussions with them
and been able to share and develop a visual way of representing this
Yeti.“

Joe Rohde – Executive Designer- Walt Disney Imaginering

Everest Expedition features 10 species of trees, 110 species of shrubs that re-create the lowlands surrounding Mount Everest and 2,000 handcrafted items from Asia are
evident in the props, cabinetry and architectural ornamentation.

Here’s the ride in all it’s user-generated YouTube glory.

Posted by Ed Cotton