Photos from George Short, Part 13: Cascade Peak, 1962

Because we all loved Cascade Peak, I would have posted these sooner, but they needed the green channel tweaked. The shots all come from a 1962 trip on the Columbia sailing ship. George obviously found the different viewpoints of the mountain worthy enough to snap several photos!

The deteriorated condition of the mountain warranted its 1998 removal. Walt, however, found such features to be a good value. In the 1975 book given to Club 55 members, Roy Brehm remembers Walt talking to him about water animation being the cheapest thing to build and operate in the Park and pointed to the several waterfalls of Skull Rock as an example. Cascade Peak fit the bill, as did the waters flowing from under Tom and Huck's Treehouse on Tom Sawyer Island (the "headwaters" of the Rivers of America), Schweitzer Falls, the Matterhorn waterfalls, and the Submarine Voyage waterfalls disguising the cavern entrance. What other water animation did Disneyland have during Walt's time?

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!