The cover has been revealed for “Disneyland on the Mountain: Walt, the Environmentalists, and the Ski Resort That Never Was,” a new book about one of Walt Disney’s final, unfinished projects: a ski resort at California’s Mineral King in Sequoia National Park. The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and will be released on September 13, 2023.
Disneyland on the Mountain: Walt, the Environmentalists, and the Ski Resort That Never Was – $32
The book is by Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer and is published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Here’s the official description from Amazon:
A fascinating look at Walt Disney’s last, unfinished project and the controversy that surrounded it.
It was going to be Disneyland at the top of a mountain. A vacation destination where guests could ski, go ice skating, or be entertained by a Disney Imagineer-created band of Audio-Animatronic bears. In the summer, visitors could fish, camp, hike, or take a scenic chairlift ride to the top of a mountain. It was the Mineral King resort in Southern California, and it was Walt Disney’s final passion project. But there was one major obstacle to Walt’s dream: the growing environmentalist movement of the 1960s.
In Disneyland on the Mountain: Walt, the Environmentalists, and the Ski Resort That Never Was, Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer provide an unprecedented look inside the Mineral King saga, from its origins at the 1960 Winter Olympics to the years-long environmental fight that eventually shut the development down. The fight, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, reshaped the environmental movement and helped to put in place long-reaching laws to protect nature. Although the court battle, coupled with Walt’s death in 1966, meant the end for the Mineral King resort, the ideas and planning behind it have permeated throughout the Walt Disney company and the ski tourism industry in ways that are still seen today.
With firsthand interviews and behind-the-scenes details, Disneyland on the Mountain offers incredible access to a part of Disney history that hasn’t been thoroughly explored before, including Walt’s love of nature, how the company changed after Walt’s death, and of course, the story of Mineral King. It’s a tale of man versus nature, ambition versus mortality, and how a gang of scrappy environmentalists took on one of America’s most beloved companies.
The unfinished Mineral King ski resort is referenced in the updated finale scene of Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom. The son, James, is now wearing a pullover featuring the logo for the Mineral King ski resort.
We previously shared a look at Walt Disney Productions’ 1965 Annual Report, which included a spread about the Mineral King resort, as well as previews of Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland and “The Jungle Book.” We also shared a 1978 issue of “The Disneyland Line,” a newsletter for park Cast Members, that references the ongoing Mineral King saga.
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