08/15/2007 10:02:27 PM 
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
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