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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — "Respect tradition — beware," warn yellowed posters and weathered totem poles surrounding a 200-foot peak.

Inside lives the biggest, fiercest creature Walt Disney designers have ever created — the yeti — and a mile-long runaway train ride through the Himalayas that brings visitors face-to-face with this mythological legend.

In Nepalese lore, the mysterious yeti is thought to protect the pristine east Asian mountains and forests. At Walt Disney World's new Expedition Everest attraction, it's a howling animatronic beast — and the center of the theme park giant's first big-ticket attraction here in 2 1/2 years.

Everest, set to open April 7 in Disney's Animal Kingdom, features a train navigating an 80-foot drop, rumbling over bridges and through valleys backward and forward to escape the monster, who has seemingly twisted and broken the tracks.

With no upside-down turns, Everest isn't as white-knuckling as some new coasters. But it could help Disney draw visitors to the Animal Kingdom, which has long lagged in popularity behind sister parks Epcot, the Magic Kingdom and Disney-MGM Studios.

The Everest attraction, billed as a family thrill ride for those at least 44 inches tall, could scarcely be more different than Disney's last big-ticket item, the rocket-simulating Mission: Space. Equipped with vomit bags, Mission: Space uses a centrifuge and recreates two times the force of gravity while taking riders on a simulated trip to Mars.

Still, Everest was adventurous enough for 5-year-old Pauline Cordova, whose Monroe, N.J., family got a chance to check out Everest early as Disney continues testing the ride before the grand opening. Pauline's brothers Chris, 11, and Mike, 8, had already ridden it three times, but once was enough for her.

"I thought it was scary," Pauline said, clutching her mother's hand.

Several research trips to western China and Nepal helped Disney designers create the 6.2-acre attraction, including their rendition of a Himalayan village called "Serka Zong" that leads visitors up to the ride.

"The ride experience changes from this sort of scenic tour to this sort of fast-paced drop backwards," said Mike Lentz, vice president of new business initiatives for Walt Disney Imagineering.

The ride includes turns through a light mist meant to simulate weather in the low-lying mountains and scream-inducing rushes through the dark inside a fake snowcapped mountain.

At least 8,000 props purchased from Nepal adorn the village, along with prayer flags and ancient-looking carvings of goats and yaks. Disney is nurturing 900 bamboo plants, 10 species of trees and 110 species of shrubs to re- create the local vegetation around the attraction.

Park researchers were accompanied by Conservation International and film crews from Discovery Networks, whose Travel Channel will premiere a chronicle of the trip called "Expedition Everest: Journey to Sacred Lands" the week of April 9.