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When you step into Frontierland at Disneyland, you join the great legends of the Old West – explorers, trappers, traders, and travelers who faced the unknown in America's age of "Manifesting Destiny." The dusty town of Frontierland is just the place to secure a 'coon skin cap, a pop gun, or some Doritos before rejoining the trail in a wagon or on horseback, continuing the long and dangerous journey.

Image: Disney, via Card Cow

But of course, if you hook a right where Frontierland's "Main Street" meets the Rivers of America, you'll stumble across the little mining village of Rainbow Ridge, settled high on a hillside. It's always a beautiful day in Rainbow Ridge – the last outpost of civilization. This is where Frontierland dead-ends. There's no safe passage to Fantasyland here. What lies beyond is the great, untouched, uncharted wilderness of the North American frontier: Nature's Wonderland.

Rainbow Ridge is a hive buzzing with activity. From this clapboard town departs both lines of Pack Mules headed off into the desert and gleaming gold and green ore carts of the Mine Train. Though the two will criss-cross through the wilderness, it's the latter that'll serve as our transportation today. It's a miniature railroad – just a 2'6" gauge (the Disneyland Railroad has a 3' gauge) – but that'll be plenty to tour us through the wonders that await beyond Frontierland... 

Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland

Image: Disney, by Chris Merritt

With guests loaded onto the inward-facing benches of their ore cars, the journey can begin. The train lumbers to life, advancing out of Rainbow Ridge and into a tunnel through the hillside. The voice of an old prospector (provided by acclaimed actor and frequent Disney collaborator Dallas McKennon) narrates our journey:

“Howdy, folks! Welcome to the little minin’ town of Rainbow Ridge, the gateway to Nature’s Wonderland. As we head for the wilderness, a couple of suggestions: please stay seated at all times, and keep yer hands and arms inside the train. The animals get mighty hungry. And, uh, no smokin’ please, ’cause we don’t want to start a forest fire. Now, beyond these hills lies Nature’s Wonderland. Yer apt to see a whole lotta wildlife, so keep a real sharp hunter’s eye...

Our train emerges from the darkened tunnel in a space that lives up to the "Wonderland" designation – a forested grove of soaring trees and babbling brooks known to our prospector as Beaver Valley. (It's hard to believe this was an orange grove less than a decade earlier.)

Image via Yesterland; photo by Marion Caswell, 1976, courtesy Dennis Caswell

As the train lumbers across an elevated, wooden trestle, beavers bob up and down in the water below, constructing a dam of branches and twigs while others gnaw on trees along the shore.

On a rocky outcropping above, marmots raise and lower from burrows, chirping and chittering at the passing train. "Them little marmots over the tunnel must be a-whistlin’ to all you pretty gals. I can’t say I blame 'em," he laughs. The track ahead curves to the left, gliding into the tunnel beneath the marmots.

Image: Yesterland, photo by Charles R. Lympany, circa 1961-1962, courtesy of Chris Taylor
Mine Train Cascade Peak
Image: Yesterland, photo by Werner Weiss, 1969

When we emerge, we find ourselves along the Rivers of America, on a track curving around the legendary Cascade Peak. Though it's only 75 feet tall, the peak benefits from Disney's spectacular "forced perspective," with artificially-stretched and skewed proportions. Cascade Peak serves as a visual icon for the entire Rivers of America – a Western equivalent of the Matterhorn. Waterfalls pour from the peak, pooling and cascading down plateaus to churn the waters that encircle Tom Sawyer Island.

"If you've never gone beneath a waterfall before, then get set, 'cause we're comin' up on Big Thunder, the biggest falls in all these here parts. Yuh don't hafta worry, though... unless the wind changes! Them other two falls, they call the Twin Sisters – I reckon that's 'cause they're always babblin'!"

Passing along the "back side of water" from Big Thunder (perhaps the Ninth Wonder of the World?), trains glide along the Rivers of America, briefly returned to Frontierland's wide vista with oncoming riverboats, criss-crossing canoes, and folks climbing along Tom Sawyer Island on the opposite shore. Just as quickly, the ore carts disappear behind Cascade Peak and back into the remote Nature's Wonderland...

Image: Disney

Now, we're in Bear Country. The train slows as it tackles the rickety trestle. Better safe than sorry since, below and on either side, bears follick and fish in the water. On shore, a family of bears scratches against trees. "You know, bears are one of the most playful animals there is. Lazy, too. All they wanna do is lay around and scratch and fish and swim... that is, when they ain't sleepin'!" 

Ahead to the right, though, is a reminder that Nature's Wonderland isn't all beauty and play. "Sometimes she can be a mighty rugged place to live. Out here in the wilderness, the struggle for survival leaves only the strong and sometimes the lucky. Say, look on that bank, ‘cross Bear Creek, there..."

Image: cpo57, Flickr (License)

The two stags – forever locking antlers – are two of the most impressive figures in any Disney Parks attraction of the era. They heave and push against each other, their legs gripping against the rock as they take turns edging toward defeat. "Now there’s a real struggle for survival. Two stags are battlin’ for them cow elk. Maybe you folks can tell me, though—does gettin’ two womenfolk mean you’re the winner or the loser? Never could figger that’n out!"

Ahead, the red rock of the Natural Arch presides over the entrance to the Living Desert. Timing it just right, we might even see a line of real Pack Mules – with real guests on their back – marching up across the fantastic natural feature.

Image: Disney

"Ya know, the desert’s a dry place, and full of some pretty mean varmints. Gotta be careful of sidewinders, wild pigs, and even mountain lions. But the desert’s got her beauty, too."

Passing by Rainbow Peak for now, the train chugs out into the vast desert. Eagle-eyed guests may spot elf owls perched atop rocks, antelopes drinking from a desert pool, or ring-tailed cats basking on sun-baked stones. A bobcat perches atop a cactus, surrounded in a family of wild pigs that've left him in a "sticky situation."

Image: Yesterland, photo by Werner Weiss, 1975

“Now ahead of us, folks, is a giant saguaro cactus forest. The desert heat sometimes gets to ya and makes these here cactus take on strange shapes, like animals… and sometimes even people."

Rounding the corner, the train chugs past "the Devil's Paint Pots" – bubbling pools of colorful mud – "a real mystery of the desert." Evidence of the immense geothermal power of the desert, the "Paint Pots" give way to geyser country, sending streams of sizzling water skyward. "I'm sure glad you all brought your rain coats," the prospector offers as we approach "Ole' Unfaithful" which threatens to erupt right on top of us! 

Image: LIFE

The train passes by the den of mountain lion, then by the resting place of a much more ancient predator: the sun-bleached bones of a T. rex, embedded in the red desert rock. Rabbits, tortoises, badgers, rattlesnakes, roadrunners, gila monsters, and armadillos can be found among the desert landscape, all in the shadow of a coyote that reigns over all, howling from a rock face. Then, it's on to the teetering Balancing Rock Canyon where boulders teeter and topple toward guests.

Finally, the rails lead through a tunnel into Rainbow Peak for our last stop. “Now, we’re goin’ deep into the earth to view the dazzling Rainbow Caverns. You’ll see giant stalagmites, stalactites, an' colorful falls on every side. Say, if ya look real careful, you’ll see geyser grotto, an' even the witch’s cauldron..."

Image: Disney
Natures Wonderland Map
Image: Disney

The prospector goes quiet as heavenly music reverberates through the caves. The sun disappears as the dayglo caverns spring to otherworldly life under ultraviolet light. The beautiful, stepped Bridal Veil Falls has churning, foaming water cacading down tiers like a wedding cake; Geyser Grotto (above) has sputtering, glowing geysers. Though brief, the trip through the Rainbow Caverns is a fitting finale for our tour of the wonders of nature.

Exiting the darkness of the caverns, the mine train returns once more to the sleepy desert town of Rainbow Ridge and, beyond, the safety and security of Frontierland.

"Well, I see we're comin' back to Rainbow Ridge again. I hope you all enjoyed yer trip into Nature's Wonderland. Please stay in yer seats until I get the train stopped, will ya? And if ya got a mountain lion sittin' next to ya, don't feed 'im! Just tell 'im to hop out and hightail it back to his own stompin' ground. Well, thanks for ridin' along, and come on back when yer out here in these here frontier parts, will ya? So long!"

We always like to end our in-depth ride histories with a point-of-view video showing what the ride was like. Below is a wonderfully edited look at the key scenes of the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland that we highly recommend. Take a virtual ride before we wrap up the story of this Disneyland classic and how it almost and actually lived on... 

Onward

Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland was a treasure. Exporting the idea of the Jungle Cruise to the American Southwest, the ride was somehow more intimate yet more vast than its adventurous cousin. Replacing elephants, hippos, and tigers with bears, beavers, and coyotes, the ride highlighted not only the wildlife of Frontierland, but let guests become "Westward" travelers exploring a new and wild country.

It's easy to imagine Nature's Wonderland becoming as quintessentially "Disney" as the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, or the Jungle Cruise itself; in another universe, Magic Kingdom or Tokyo Disneyland might offer 10-acre Wonderlands of their own; Disneyland Paris, a romantic and "in-universe" version of the ride. But Disneyland alone featured Marc Davis' Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland. That's because when it came time to design Magic Kingdom, he had an even bigger concept teed up to take its place... Read on as we explore the "evolution" of Nature's Wonderland and its eventual replacement...

 
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