Matterhorn Bobsleds
In 1958, Walt Disney spent time in Switzerland as the Disney movie "Third Man on the Mountain" was being filmed there.  The movie was about a boy trying to fulfill his dream of climbing a mountain, and it used the Matterhorn as a filming location.  The actual Matterhorn mountain is part of the Swiss Alps and sits on the border of Switzerland and Italy.  Its peak stands 14,692 feet (4,478 meters) above sea level.  With four steep faces, it is considered one of the deadliest peaks because many mountaineers have died trying to climb it.  The mountain was first summited in 1856, but four of the climbers fell to their deaths while descending from that historic climb.  The western face wasn't successfully climbed until the 1960s.

Walt so loved the look of the real mountain that he sent a postcard with a Matterhorn picture on it back to Disney engineers in California.  On the card, he simply wrote, "Build this!"  The mountain seen in this picture was the eventual outcome of Walt's decree.  The cables seen on the right of the peak were used during the nightly fireworks show.  They allowed Tinkerbell to fly to and from the mountain during the presentation.

©2018 Joel A. Rogers.