Expediton Everest creator Joe Rohde has again commented on the condition of the broken Yeti audio-animatronic which has now been out of order for more than 13 years.
In response to a Twitter post suggesting maintenance access to the figure was a problem, Joe said, "It’s not an issue of maintenance access, they were part of the design team and set the standard. In fact, it was seen as a model collaborative process. It’s an unexpected and unforeseen set of issues, very complex, with no easy or timely solutions as of yet."
In a follow up response to a poster saying that in other words, it was "messed up" Joe replied with, "Not “messed up.” These guys did not ignore something or botch it. Innovation is like physical exploration of unknown spaces. There is stuff out there that you didn’t know, and you only encounter it by exploration. But then....there it is."
Joe Rohde is a Portfolio Creative Executive with Walt Disney Imagineering, and was the creative lead on Expedition Everest and Disney's Animal Kingdom.
The Yeti, Guardian of the Mountain, is a mammoth-sized Audio-Animatronics figure with a potential thrust, in all of its hydraulic cylinders combined, of slightly over 259,000 pounds force -- potentially more instantaneous power than a 747-400 airliner.
The animatronic's motion was switched off less than a year after the ride opened in 2006 due to what is believed to be various unspecified structural issues around the figure.
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