Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars (

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

: 灰熊山極速礦車) is a

steel roller coaster A steel roller coaster is a roller coaster that is defined by having a track made of steel. Steel coasters have earned immense popularity in the past 50 years throughout the world. Incorporating tubular steel track and polyurethane-coated whee ...

in the

Grizzly Gulch Frontierland is one of the "themed lands" at the many Disneyland-style parks run by Disney around the world. Themed to the American Frontier of the 19th century, Frontierlands are home to cowboys and pioneers, saloons, red rock buttes and gol ...

section of

Hong Kong Disneyland Hong Kong Disneyland () (local nickname ''HKDL''; also known as HK Disneyland) is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. It is located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and it is owned and managed by Hong Ko ...

. The attraction features

Audio-Animatronic Audio-Animatronics (also known as simply Animatronics, and sometimes shortened to AAs) is the registered trademark for a form of robotics animation created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequent ...

bears as well as a backwards section. Big Grizzly Mountain is the second mountain and third

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland.

History

Planning

In early 2009, Hong Kong Disneyland proposed a financial arrangement to the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (LegCo) is the unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under China's " one country, two systems" constitutional arrangement, and is the power centre of Hong Kong ...

with the aim of expanding the park by adding three new themed areas. This plan was approved in July 2009. On 13 December 2009, the official groundbreaking ceremony took place.

Construction

The mountain, the centrepiece of the themed area, is tall and was constructed with 30 sculptors and 20 painters working on it for eight hours a day over a period of 14 months. The team visited California's Sierra Nevada Mountains and

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...

before starting work. A town from the gold rush days of the 1840s and 1850s has been built around the mountain. Rocks on the mountain seem rough and eroded, but none of them are real. Instead, 3,850 tonnes of cement were used to create them. Even the bricks and "wooden" logs at the site are made from cement. The team used a special, relatively soft cement to shape the mountain's features. It is also structurally safer: the cement used to make the mountain is as strong as any cement used to build houses. To make the mountain look realistic, designers went through several exhaustive stages, including sketching, model-making, three-dimensional computer scans and adding authentic finishing touches. Two hundred people were hired in May 2012 to run Grizzly Gulch.

Opening

In June 2012, ''Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars'' began

soft opening A soft launch, also known as a soft opening, is a preview release of a product or service to a limited audience prior to the general public. Soft-launching a product is sometimes used to gather data or customer feedback, prior to making it widely ...

s. On 14 July 2012, the ride was officially opened to the public.

Ride

Overview

''Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars'' is the centrepiece attraction in the Grizzly Gulch section of Hong Kong Disneyland. It is a

Vekoma Vekoma Rides Manufacturing is a Dutch amusement ride manufacturer. Vekoma is syllabic abbreviation of Veld Koning Machinefabriek (Veld Koning Machine Factory) which was established in 1926 by Hendrik op het Veld. History The company originally ...

Mine train roller coaster with of track. The ride is the second Disney roller coaster to have a backwards section on it – the first being

Expedition Everest Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain is a steel roller coaster built by Vekoma at Disney's Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The ride is themed around the Yeti protecting the Forbidd ...

Disney's Animal Kingdom Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park is a zoological theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division, it is the l ...

Walt Disney World The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...

. The roller coaster also bears several similarities to the

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a mine train roller coaster located at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Park in Paris. In Tokyo and Paris, the attraction is named Big Thunder Mountain. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is ...

attractions at many Disney theme parks, with the mountain itself resembling Grizzly Peak at

Disney California Adventure Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...

Experience

The ride begins in the ''Big Grizzly Mountain Mining Company'' building. This is home to the mining company's sawmill and one of the mining shafts, where the sounds of a snoring bear can be heard. Signage reports on recent sightings of the mountain's resident family of bears, which lead one of the original prospectors to discover the mountain's gold and the bears to be seen as a lucky charm.Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars
Hong Kong Disneyland Resort Upon boarding the 24 seat trains, guests are sent out of the station into tunnel 8. An animatronic

grizzly bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horri ...

, named Rocky, accidentally sends passengers down tunnel 4 while scratching himself on a track switch. In Chinese tradition, the number 8 signifies good luck and the number 4 signifies death, as the numbers are homonyms for characters representing luck and death, respectively. Entering tunnel 4, the train begins to climb a lift hill in the style of a traditional roller coaster. Once the train nears the top of the mountain the lift cable appears to break (next to Shaft 44, in reality the lift cable ends) causing the riders to go back down the hill in reverse and along a different track before entering another mine. Two animatronic bears, a mother and cub named Mother Lode and Nugget, are located inside the mine and the cub sets off some TNT while reaching for a hanging catch of fish left behind by one of the miners, causing the train to launch out of the mine on yet another track. The train then goes through a variety of twists and turns before arriving at the terminal

brake run A brake run on a roller coaster is any section of track meant to slow or stop a roller coaster train. Brake runs may be located anywhere along the circuit of a coaster and may be designed to bring the train to a complete halt or to simply adjust ...

and returning to the station, passing by a damaged minecar containing Mother Lode, Nugget and the fish.

References

External links

Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars full ride
{{Disney rides 2012 establishments in Hong Kong Audio-Animatronic attractions Frontierland Hong Kong Disneyland Roller coasters at Hong Kong Disneyland Roller coasters introduced in 2012 Walt Disney Parks and Resorts attractions Western (genre) amusement rides