Monday, May 5, 2008

Cascade Peak Demo

I don't have any gory photos of Cascade Peak coming down, but I was a frequent visitor to the Rivers of America in the summer of 1998 and did document its final sad state. No exact dates for the first two, but they are undoubtedly from July or August:

These are detail shots of Cascade Peak, showing its deterioration prior to removal. The first two are from August 30 and the following three from September 9.

When I returned to the area on September 30, much of the peak was gone:

By December 20, the area had been replanted:

Finally, a 1997/2008 before and after view of the area... still popular with the ducks!

7 comments:

Major Pepperidge said...

I've heard stories about how Cascade Peak was on the verge of collapsing. But doesn't it make sense that, with some reasonable maintenance, it would not have reached that sorry state? It seems like it was a victim of neglect and could still be there today. But what do I know!

mydisneycollection said...

I remember reading (probably on the internet so we'll have to argue on if it's true or not) but that Cascade Peak was also home to a water filtration plant. Tearing down the Peak also removed a vital part of cleaner river water.

The Viewliner Limited said...

To bad Disneyland's original mountain is gone.

walterworld said...

Very interesting---I remember this period well.

I visited a couple of months apart and Poof! Cascade Peak went to Yesterland...

Thanks for documenting this.

Anonymous said...

Disneyland's original mountain would be Holiday Hill.

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Sweet post! Love the before and after shots! I understand how about the deterioration; your photos show it pretty clear. But come on Disney, I have seen photos of when they built this thing, it was framed with big steel I-Beams, just like the Matterhorn. Yeah maybe the outside was plywood and paper-mache, but they could have torn of the facade part and re-skinned it. Thanks for the post, it’s fascinating to see.

Anonymous said...

It's unfortunate that they haven't figured out something as visually arresting to replace it with. Seeing Cascade Peak was always a highlight; beautiful things to look at are always good to have in a Disney park.