The following article written by David C. Brassfield and Mike Smith of S.T.E.P.S., Inc. was printed in the June edition of Parellel Lines, the newsletter of the Association for Challenge Course Technology.

Canopy Tours

What Is a Canopy Tour?

Canopy Tours in the western hemisphere were originally an outgrowth of techniques developed by biologists seeking to study the ecosystems of the Tropical Rainforest. Using a variety of approaches to access the upper reaches of the forest while minimizing their impact upon its ecology, researchers began about 30 years ago to observe and catalog the animals and plants that flourished there and to study their complex interrelationships.

Observation posts and transportation routes through the canopy were established by several means, including Tyrolean traverses and zip lines, rope ascension devices, towers and cranes, suspension bridges, and even hot air balloons. Each of these methods pioneered by scientists continue to be employed in one or another of the many commercial Canopy Tours that have grown up to serve and promote eco-tourism in the Rainforest. Some operators have gone one step further and installed aerial tramways complete with enclosed gondolas.

While many tours are quite serious about their mission of promoting awareness and appreciation of forest canopy ecology, many others now operate primarily as vehicles for recreation and amusement: the thrill of the ride is the principal attraction.

Zip lines and suspended walkways have come to figure most prominently in Canopy Tours as the industry has developed. Such courses typically feature an interconnected series of traverses and crossings over a route that runs down above a sloping forest floor, valley, ravine, or canyon. Entry and exit may be achieved by ground-level platforms or by stairways, ladders, and rappel stations. Fall protection is provided through harnesses, lanyards, clips, and trolleys. Riders may also be required to wear helmets and gloves. Speed control and braking may or may not require effort by the participant.

Guides and facilitators on these courses must master a variety of skills, including client screening, client management, equipment fitting and inspection, course inspection and maintenance, high angle rescue and course evacuation, belaying, and, of course, effective public speaking.

Recent Developments

Though canopy traverses began as a tool for scientific inquiry and evolved into a means of showing off the forest to the general public, many courses now are designed first and foremost to provide thrills and excitement. As the Fodor’s online travel site puts it: “There are two basic types of canopy tours: one that gives you a chance to see treetop animals up close; and one that lets you behave like them.”

These days Canopy Tours are often also referred to as Zip Tours, especially when they are not actually located in the forest canopy. Such courses are frequently installed on poles or towers, usually in the middle of a scenic landscape and often as a part of a recreation park or ski resort.

Canopy Tours and Zip Tours have become big business, generating some $120 million in annual revenues in Costa Rica alone. The cruise lines which ply the waters along the Pacific coast and around the Caribbean provide a huge market for expansion and have helped spawn much of the recent construction in the Temperate Rainforest regions of the Alaskan Inland Passage. Ski Resorts increasingly install courses to round out their recreational offerings. Dozens of new tours are likely to begin operation in the next few years.

Where Does Challenge Course Technology Fit In?

A number of arguments can be made for treating Canopy Tour courses as yet another development of the challenge course industry.

Zip lines have always been a powerful element in the repertoire of activities available to adventure educators. They form a part of many a challenge course and are usually guaranteed to provide the “peak experience” so prized by many programmers. Applicable installation techniques and operational practices are published in the current ACCT standards guide. Most other elements (bridges, transfer platforms, overhead belays, rappel stations) included in Canopy Tours and Zip Tours are already covered by those standards, as well. Thus an interconnected series of zip traverses, high bridges, and—in the case of some recently constructed hybrid courses—traditional challenge course elements, is not a new kind of structure but a variation or extension of what is already quite familiar to ACCT members.

At the heart of most challenge course programs are the concepts of the mutually supportive group, the importance of individual contributions, and the value of accepting reasonable risks in order to grow and to learn. As pods of clients move from station to station on a Canopy Tour course, under the supervision of trained guides and facilitators, they all share the common challenge course experience of working through their doubts and fears, including the fear of heights and the fear of letting go. Inevitably they must navigate an inward emotional terrain even as they explore the outward physical landscape.

Of course, the focus of most Canopy Tour and Zip Tour courses is less upon adventure education and more upon environmental awareness or upon high altitude recreation. But this is true of some challenge course and outdoor education programs, as well. Missions and means overlap, but members of the ACCT still move quite freely and quite regularly from one pole to the other, all the while within the realm of challenge course technology.

Where Do Interests Diverge?

On the other hand, many Canopy Tour courses do depart in significant ways from the traditional challenge course model, and arguments can be made that the differences really place them in a category that is outside the mission of the ACCT.

At one end of the spectrum is the Zip Tour which operates solely as an amusement ride, welcoming almost all comers and sending them through a series of zips as if they were riders on a roller coaster with transfer stations along the way. At the other extreme is the moderately paced, strictly educational journey along carefully engineered lines where guides do almost all of the work and participants mainly look, listen, ask questions, and ride. Neither of these less common approaches entails much in the way of self-examination or shared discussion and reflection: common elements of most challenge course experiences.

Such courses, though structurally they may resemble what one expects to find on a challenge course, in practice and in purpose they do not.

Has the Train Already Left the Station?

A brief search of the internet for Central American canopy tours will turn up many websites that proudly proclaim their operations to be ACCT certified and their staff ACCT trained. Many assert compliance with ACCT installation standards. Presumably the operators have availed themselves of the professional services of ACCT members, and those members have in turn applied the familiar standards of their work in the challenge course industry. [Editor’s note: in some cases, claims made by Canopy Tours in countries outside of the US about ACCT affiliation are not correct and should be carefully checked out.]

Insurance companies and risk managers in the cruise line industry are increasingly requiring that new canopy tour operators within the United States demonstrate compliance with what they refer to as ACCT standards. The evidence presented generally takes the form of an inspection report and certificate that refers to current ACCT standards.

As in any fast growing industry, it will take some time until the “dust settles” and it is clear whether the canopy tour industry will continue to ally itself with the challenge course industry, or take off on it’s own.

Written By:  David Brassfield and Michael Smith