A tower crane has appeared at the Piston Peak construction site between Big Thunder Mountain and the Haunted Mansion, and that single piece of equipment marks a real shift from digging and grading to actual vertical building.
If you’ve been watching this project mostly move dirt around for the better part of a year, this is the update that finally makes it feel like a ride.
New aerial photos from longtime construction photographer bioreconstruct show the crane rising out of what’s likely the future home of Cars Ridge Run Rally, one of the two rides headed for Piston Peak National Park. Access to the new land will sit between the exit of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Haunted Mansion, directly connecting two of Magic Kingdom’s most iconic attractions to a brand-new one for the first time. Disney has said the mountain peak that gives Piston Peak its name will be designed to visually match the terrain of its new neighbors, so the land is being built to blend into that corner of the park rather than stand apart from it.
The broader construction zone has grown into something genuinely massive. Recent wide-angle aerial shots show the combined Piston Peak and Villains Land site now stretching from the former Rivers of America footprint deep into Magic Kingdom’s backstage areas, easily the largest single expansion the park has ever undertaken. Those same photos have also picked up a few unrelated but interesting developments nearby: a fireworks launch position lined up with Cinderella Castle, a new office building going up near Adventureland, and a rerouting of Floridian Way, the road running along the park’s edge.
It’s worth remembering how this land came to exist in the first place. The Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and the Liberty Belle Riverboat all closed back on July 7, 2025, and the demolition of Tom Sawyer Island ran from roughly October through December of that year. The Liberty Belle itself didn’t just get scrapped, it was actually floated backstage across Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake to a marina near Disney’s Contemporary Resort, where it currently sits. Since the land was fully cleared in early 2026, most of this year’s visible work has been site prep and grading, culminating in the retaining wall that now runs along the Frontierland and Liberty Square promenade, across from Big Thunder Mountain’s entrance. That wall exists because the old riverbed sits below the surrounding grade, and it’s shaping up to form the basin for whatever water feature ends up running through the new land, since Disney’s own concept art has shown a stream and waterfall woven through Piston Peak.
A tower crane going up is genuinely one of the more reliable signs that a project is entering its next real phase. Grading and retaining walls are foundational work, necessary but not visually dramatic. Vertical construction is where a construction zone actually starts to look like the thing it’s going to become, and that’s exactly what this crane signals for Piston Peak.
We’ll keep tracking construction progress at Piston Peak and Villains Land as it continues, so check back with Theme Park Scope for the next update, and follow us on social so you don’t miss it.
Now that vertical construction has started, are YOU more excited for Piston Peak or Villains Land to open first?
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