DCA Construction: Grizzly River Run 1998-1999

Early Grizzly Peak Conceptual Art! See the Grizzly Bear head carved into the far right of the peak?

Conceptual Art of Grizzly Peak!

Looking at the far right of the vehicles in the photo you can see the start of Grizzly River run!

A few months later the mountain is starting to go up!

A month later, more progress on the mountain!

You can see the the tunnel that is mine shaft 13 after you go down Drop 1!

Here is a better shot of the mountain!

The steel frame that will eventually become the peak itself!

The mountain is slowly rising!

Here you can see that construction on the entire park is in full swing! Past Grizzly Peak you can see the tunnels for California Screamin', the top of the Golden Zephyr, the ball that would eventually become the Orange Stinger and the three towers of the Maliboomer!

Here is one last photo of the peak before the observation deck was closed!

DCA Construction: Entranceway 1998-1999

One of the first pieces of concept art showing off the entranceway into Disney's California Adventure!

Not too much going on on the last day of 1998!

The middle far right shows some of the construction happening at Grizzly River Run but not much progress on the entrance area itself!

The first signs of the entrance walkway taking shape! Take a look at the four poles - two on either side of the monorail on the middle far right of the photo! That is the entranceway or where the Golden Gate Bridge would one day be! Then of course it would then make way for the Hyperion Bridge!

One last look at the entranceway!

The finished product come 2001!

The new entranceway or Buena Vista Street as of March 2012!

DCA Construction: Soarin' Over California 1998-1999

As Disney California Adventure Park nears the end of a $1 billion plus expansion, I thought it would a great time to take a look back as the park was being built! Here is a look at the building of Soarin' Over California!

 One of the first pieces of concept art for California Soarin'. That's right, it was going to be called California Soarin'. I'm sure with California Screamin' that no one wanted two similar sounding attractions in the same park.

Starting with the very last day of the year in 1998, the big hole in the ground to the right of the monorail is the start of Soarin' Over California!

Jumping ahead by nearly four months, it doesn't look like too much has been done. Near the center of the photo you can see part of the support structure for Soarin' Over California. It is the black support beam on the ground in the center of the photo.

A month later, you can see part of the Grand Californian coming up. It is the structure to the top right of the photo next to the Soarin' Over California hole in the ground.

A week later you can now see the support structure is starting to go up!

Moving ahead by 4 months you can see that now familiar shape of the Soarin' Over California building is really taking shape!

And to wrap things up, here is a great photo I took in March on 2012! How fitting to take a photo of Soarin' Over California from the air!

I hope you enjoyed this quick look back! There will be more photos in the very near future!