California Adventure - Grizzly Peak

We took family trips to Disneyland three times during my childhood. These were always long road trips, and we would arrive late in the morning of the third day. I would keep my eyes peeled for the first signs of the three mountains of Disneyland: Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, and Thunder Mountain.

It's harder to spot Thunder Mountain now, because Splash Mountain is so much taller, but California Adventure has its own high points. Obviously Mickey's Fun Wheel stands out, and the Tower of Terror, but there is a mountain too, and that is Grizzly Peak.

Grizzly River Run: This is river rapids ride. Splash Mountain and the log ride at Knott's Berry Farm have some similarities.but they are more flume rides: your conveyance is a log and you are on a narrower track. Here you are seated facing inward in a circle, and the route is wider and deeper, but perhaps that is not as important as the openings in your raft. What I am getting at here is that you are going to get very wet.

Sometimes on Splash Mountain you don't get very wet, depending on where you are sitting and how you hit various corners. On Grizzly River Run, you are going to get soaked. There's just no way around this. A poncho could probably help, but that only covers part of your body, and there will be water everywhere. This is why I cannot get my sisters to ride it.

I have actually only ridden it once, because it was closed last time. I say go for it, and getting wet is part of the fun, but plan ahead. Know which day you are going to ride it and don't wear jeans, or particularly thin t-shirts. Think about chafing, and exhibitionism, and also squelching. Yes, think about your shoes. The park always involves a lot of walking and time on your feet, so you would not want to wear flip flops for the entire day, but changing into a pair of flip flops when getting on here is probably a good idea.

Redwood Creek Challenge Trail: Personally, I think we could have gotten to Anaheim faster than we did, but we always stopped in Redding on the first night to see cousins, and sometimes we visited them without Disneyland being involved, which often involved day trips to other points of interest. That is why it was so funny to suddenly find ourselves at the Mount Lassen Lookout in the middle of California Adventure. We have some stories.

This trail is probably the best spot for wearing out children in California Adventure. Dot's Puddle Park is good for cooling them down, but here there are trails and things to climb, slides, zip lines, searches, and even an opportunity to earn Wilderness Explorer badges, based on the movie Up. There is also some Native American lore, somewhat inspired by Brother Bear.

I can appreciate the value of the setup, and I really appreciated getting to have my picture taken with Doug from Up, because I love him, but as childless people, we generally don't spend much time here. We went this time because Julie had read that there was a statue of Humphrey the Bear in there.

You may remember him from various Disney cartoons, set in a park somewhat similar to Yellowstone, with a park ranger who was often exasperated by the always hungry bears. (Humphrey may have inspired Yogi, but he is much less verbal.)

Anyway, there was no statue. There is one of Kenai and Koda at the entrance to the trail, and Humphrey himself is on a totem pole in the Wilderness Lodge at DisneyWorld. However, our search was not completely in vain, because the fire warning signs were all Humphrey and the ranger. The glare was kind of bad though, so to get more of them, and a really catchy song, check out this classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ol28kPTqa4