walt's inspiration

[DisneyJade]

just for fun....
i was in sedona, arizona recently and learned that much of the landscape there inspired walt disney's visions for his theme parks. One rock/cliff in particular looks strikingly like thunder mountain. our tour guide claimed walt had a home in sedona and spent a week sketching that particular outcropping... took it to his imagineers and it became the blueprint for thundermountain.

another cliff was the inspiration for snow white's castle.

anyway, thought you trivia buffs might find that interesting.

 

[wdwguide]

Well, Big Thunder Mountain opened in the 1980s. Walt died long before planning for this ride even began. Planning for the Western River Expedition, the cancelled project from which BTMRR was ultimately derived, dates back to the late 1968, but that's still two years after Walt's Death.
That doesn't mean that the Imagineers didn't model the theming after some place in Arizona, just that Walt had nothing to do with this particular ride.