Everest, On Steroids
Mt. Everest in Florida? Complete with the Yeti monster?
A thrill ride opening at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Fla., Friday, dubbed Expedition Everest is, according to Tracy Smith, "the tallest and arguably scariest mountain Disney's ever built. There's only one reason you'd want to ride this ride, the same one a British mountaineer gave for climbing Everest itself: because it is there!"
The ride's chief designer, Joe Rohde, told Smith it's a "high-speed action adventure journey into the high Himalayas, where you come face to face with the Yeti, the legendary guardian of the mountain. … You're inside a story. You're on a train, going through the Himalayas. So what this thing does is things you could almost believe a train could do, but it does them really, really fast.
"I want people to walk away from Expedition Everest feeling that they had a personal adventure in the Himalayas."
Smith rode the ride — three times!
She says: "It seems benign at first, something you can easily handle. Until it starts to go backwards. In the dark. With a monster roaring in background."
A monster as big as seven SUVs, Smith notes.
"I have a need for speed," she admits, "but this is no Mickey Mouse rollercoaster."
It goes 50 mph, which may not sound fast, but is. Very. As Smith can attest.