The whees turn to wails while stuck in Matterhorn

Disneyland is such a tidy, perfect little world that it's the things that go wrong that often make the most memorable moments.

For me, that moment — actually about an hour — came on my first visit when I was a little kid in the 1960s.

We'd crammed seven of us — parents, kids, grandma — into our station wagon for the 1,300-mile drive from Vancouver, B.C. to the Mickey Mouse kingdom. Days of bickering later, we finally got to Disneyland and made a beeline for the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the world's first steel roller coaster and the big thrill ride in those days.

The mock toboggans carried us steeply up the exterior of the fake-snowy Matterhorn (inspired by founder Walt Disney's trip to Switzerland where he saw the real mountain). We shrieked with glee and got dizzy peering down at the cute buildings and crowds of Main Street USA.

Reaching the summit, the ride took us hurtling down into the dark, cavernous interior of the Matterhorn. It's since been remodeled into a more exciting series of narrow ice caves, but we were plenty excited, shrieking as we zoomed along a narrow steel track that twisted and dipped through the hollow mountain.

Then, with clanking thuds, the ride slowed. It stopped dead. We stopped shrieking and started muttering as we sat marooned in midair inside the dark, dank concrete mountain.

Somewhere ahead, a child began to cry, then another and another; their wails echoed through the emptiness. Icy water from a pipe dripped on my grandmother. Men started to shout hey-get-us-out-of-here.

We could hear the distant calls of workers struggling to fix the ride. My mother had us sing cheerful ditties to pass the time and stop us from getting scared.

I was too little to be afraid. It just seemed like part of the glorious adventure of Disneyland. I tried to hang over the side to see what was going on far below in the gloom until a nervous older sibling pulled me back.

After almost an hour, the ride was fixed. We finally coasted out of the mountain into the California sunshine, blinking in the brightness. My grandmother stumbled creakily out of the bobsled, shaking her head in dismay. I was ready to do it all over again.

Kristin Jackson: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com