S.T.E.P.S., Inc. and Bonsai Design are proud to announce the completion of a second canopy tour in Ketchikan, Alaska for Alaska Canopy Adventures. The canopy tour, located in Herring Cove, provides a second option for tourists and locals seeking an opportunity to experience temperate rain forest from thirty to eighty feet in the air. The tour compliments the already highly successful Eagle Creek Canopy Tour Course that was installed for Alaska Canopy Adventures in Ketchikan in 2005 and the Treadwell Mine Tour installed in Juneau in 2006.
The new Bear Creek Canopy Tour offers seven zip lines, a 240-foot sky bridge over a cascading creek, an 80-foot platform to platform swing, and a slide that seems to have been conjured from a child's imagination. Additionally, guests will have the opportunity to relax at the Bush Camp along the river, make S'mores, and drink Hot Chocolate.
Primarily serving the cruise lines, the tour is a once in a life event, with opportunities to experience Alaska wildlife first hand. Common sightings include black bears, salmon, tree huggers, and American Bald Eagles.
CANOPY TOURSANN ARBOR, MI --Canopy Tour Builder S.T.E.P.S. and Bonsai Design are proud to announce the opening of Ohio's first arboreal canopy tour. Located 30-minutes south of Columbus, Ohio in the Hocking Hills, the tour offers more than 3200 feet of zip line cables and fly over rock bridges, fern covered gulleys and traverse the bluffs of the Hocking River. The two-and-a-half hour canopy tour experience includes a progression of 10 zip lines, 3 sky bridges, and a rappel, all with stunning views.
The Hocking Hills Canopy Tour is fifth canopy tour built by S.T.E.P.S., Inc. and Bonsai Design. Other canopy tours built by S.T.E.P.S. and Bonsai Design include two courses near Austin, Texas at Cypress Valley Canopy Tours (www.cypressvalleycanopytours.com) and canopy tours in Juneau and Ketchikan, Alaska for Alaska Canopy Adventures (www.alaskacanopy.com). "The industry is booming right now," commented Mike Smith, Director of Special Projects for S.T.E.P.S., Inc. "We currently have design and installation work underway in Ketchikan, Alaska; Santa Cruz, California, Ontario, Canada, and New Hampshire" and have been actively consulting with active and prospective tour operators in South and Central America, South Korea, the Carribean, Hawaii, South Africa, Israel, and more than 25 states in the United States. The volume of inquiries has increased exponentially since 2005. While we fielded only four inquiries for Canopy Tours in the United States in 2004, responding to inquiries is more than a full time job now."
For those seeking to enter the industry or just to enjoy the thrill of zip lining, Hocking Hills Canopy Tours offers a premiere experience. The tour is designed to immerse guests into the environment. Nestled into large sycamores, oaks, and maples, the tour provides guests the opportutnity to explore the nature world, have fun, and experience the canopy from a different perspective. Designed as a group experience, groups of 8 guests are led through the experience by two certified guides who are formally trained in Zip Lining, First Aid, Rescue, and Natural History. Tours blend the thrill of zip lining and moving at heights with the beauty and appreciation of the Hocking River Valley, one of Ohio's best known wildernesses.
S.T.E.P.S. and Bonsai Design are currently looking for other prospective tour operators in the United States and abroad who are seeking to install arboreal canopy tours that use a gloved hand-brake. "While we are familiar with other tour styles, we believe the hand-brake offers the most immersive experience and provides the type of personal challenge that differentiates our canopy tours from a roller coaster ride. We want people to feel safe, in control, and to enjoy the entire experience, offers Mike Smith. When people ask why we choose to use the hand brake system, I ask them which they would rather do, 'Drive a sports car or site in the passenger seat?' Our tours offer the experience of being in control and as a result our clients come away saying more than just 'Wow, that was a thrill.' They come away having mastered a new skill. You can see it in their smile and hear it in their laugh."
S.T.E.P.S. Lead Trainer and Canopy Tour Guide, Rhonda Sandweiss offers the following insight. "My favorite part of the tour is coaching people who arrive apprehensive or have a fear of heights through the experience. Helping people to achieve something more than they thought they could do and to do it in a beautiful place is why I love my job."
S.T.E.P.S. and Bonsai Design provide an array of services for upstart and established canopy tours ranging from Business Develop to Canopy Tour Design and Installation. Web marketing, guide training, rescue training, custom documentation, and ongoing consulting are also included in most packages. For more information on our canopy tour services, please call (248) 481-2568.
Testimonials
"It really highlights the best of Ohio. The beauty of the Hocking River and Hocking HIlls makes this canopy tour a must for canopy tour and zip line enthusiasts. While you're not going to see parrots or monkeys like you might on a canopy tour in Costa Rica, the Hocking River Valley offers similar thrills, spectacular views, and it's located right in America's Heartland. With canopy tours in Alaska, Texas, California and many other canopy tours planned for installation in the upcoming months, it's easy to forget about the beautiful deciduous forests right in our own backyard. I can't wait for people to experience the Hocking Hills Canopy Tour and fall in love with zip lining and Ohio all at once." ~ Mike Smith
"Wow! This was my first time on a canopy tour and I can't wait to do it all over again." ~ 47-year old guest
"One of the most beautful canopy tours that I have ever done." ~ Phil Kroll, S.T.E.P.S. Trainer
"Bring on the next one." ~10-year old guest
For more information about Hocking HIlls Canopy Tours
ROCKBRIDGE, OHIO CANOPY TOURS --Canopy Tour Builder S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the opening of a new canopy tour in Rockbridge, Ohio. Located 45 minutes south of Columbus, Ohio in the heart of the Hocking Valley, Hocking Hills Canopy Tours and Zip Lines promises breathtaking views of the Hocking Hills.
Be the first to experience the more than 3200 feet of zip line cables and fly over rock bridges, fern covered gulleys and traverse the bluffs of the Hocking River. The two-and-a-half hour canopy tour experience will include a progression of 10 zip lines, 3 sky bridges, and a rappel.
"It really highlights the best of Ohio. The beauty of the Hocking River and Hocking HIlls makes this canopy tour a must for canopy tour and zip line enthusiasts. While you're not going to see parrots or monkeys like you might on a canopy tour in Costa Rica, the Hocking River Valley offers similar thrills, spectacular views, and it's located right in America's Heartland," declares Mike Smith, Lead Trainer and Consultant for S.T.E.P.S., Inc. "With canopy tours in Alaska, Texas, California and many other canopy tours planned for installation in the upcoming months, it's easy to forget about the beautiful deciduous forests right in our own backyard. I can't wait for people to experience the Hocking Hills Canopy Tour and fall in love with zip lining and Ohio all at once."
The canopy tour offers adventures and thrills for guests young and old. It's the perfect adventure for families, couples seeking to escape the fast-paced city, or adults looking to try something new. Designed for guests of moderate health, the progression of zip lines is designed to accomodate first time zip-liners, and to thrill even the most experienced canopy tour aficionado.
For more information about Hocking HIlls Canopy Tours
Meet us at the 2008 ACCT Conference - Jan 31 - Feb 3
Attention Prospective Canopy Tour Operators, Entrepreneurs, and Investors!
We are heading to Portland for the 2008 Annual Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT) Conference (January 31 to February 3) and we hope to see you there. In addition to the opportunity to meet and explore course options, the conference is always packed full of excellent workshops on challenge course construction standards and adventure education programming.
On January 31, the Canopy Tour Task Force will be presenting a Pre-Conference Workshop on the State of Canopy Tours. Builders, trainers, operators, and interested parties are welcome. The Pre-Conference will be a participatory workshop aimed at defining indsutry terminology, exploring current and future trends, and discussing program philosophies and tour approaches. With a variety of builders and operators from the US and abroad scheduled to share their views and experience, the workshop is certain to provide an excellent opportunity to network and share.
Competency-based Staffing Models for Adventure Challenge Programs
Mike Smith of S.T.E.P.S., Inc. will be presenting a workshop for Challenge Course Managers and Adventure Program Directors on competency-based staffing models. Participants will be exposed to a training model that includes assessment and evaluation tools, competency-based development models, and an employee appraisal system. Participants will learn how the model helped to align training, reduce staffing costs, and improve program quality inside a growing challenge course programming organization.
Who is Coming
The following S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai representatives will be at this year's conference:
Dave Grossman - Director of Sales and Marketing for Bonsai Design, Inc.
Phill Kroll - Program Manager and Ropes Course Facilitator
Hans Kraai - Ropes Course Facilitator
Reid Burland - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
Jason Fail - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
Mark Craven - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
Tyler Anderson - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
And others..
To Schedule a Meeting in Portland
The conference is always packed full, so please call Mike Smith at (248) 481-2568 to schedule a time to meet.
New Twin 1500' Zip Line in California
Bonsai Design is proud to announce the completion of its latest project, the design and installation of twin 1500-foot zip lines at Moaning Cavern in Vallecito, California.
Moaning Cavern, known for the largest vertical chamber in a public cavern that you can see in California has a new ride. Now not only can you rappel into a cavern so large that the Statue of Liberty could fit into it, but you can experience the thrill of zipping at speeds near 40 MPH.
Canopy Tour Article in the June Issue of the ACCT Parallel Line
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
Meet us at the ACCT Conference in Boston on Feb 1 - 4
Attention Prospective Canopy Tour Operators, Entrepreneurs, and Investors!
We're heading to Boston February 1-4, 2007 for the Annual Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT) Conference and hope to see you there. In addition to the opportunity to meet and explore course options, the conference is always packed full of excellent workshops on challenge course construction standards and adventure education programming.
The following S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai representatives will be at this year's conference:
Reid Burland - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
Mark Craven - Canopy Tour and Challenge Course Builder
The conference is always packed full, so please call Mike Smith at (248) 481-2568 to arrange a time to meet.
New Canopy Tour Installed in Juneau, Alaska
S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the completion of a new canopy tour in Juneau, Alaska. The canopy tour is the second opened by Alaska Canopy Adventures in Alaska; the first was in Ketchikan last year.
Alaska Canopy Adventures' new tour consists of 10 Zip Lines, 2 Suspension Bridges and travel by jet boat and off-road vehicles. This eco-adventure canopy tour combines the thrill of gliding above the treetops in a rich rainforest on over 6,000 feet of dual zip lines, suspension bridges, and a ground- based trail network. Plus a channel crossing aboard an expedition craft, mountain ascent on an off-road vehicle, and exploring hidden relics of a world famous gold mine.
Explore Alaska as you cross aerial suspension bridges with breathtaking views of spectacular Bullion Creek, enjoy unique views of Juneau from the tree tops, and discover hidden ruins of the historic Treadwell Mine (1881-1917), once one of the world’s largest gold mines. During the tour you'll zip over one of the famous “glory holes” and explore the ruins of the original mine refinery, where millions of dollars of molten gold was poured into ingot molds.
The Canopy Challenge will be available to those who have completed the orginal canopy tour. Guests can choose to complete the Canopy Challenge on a second visit or arrange for a full-day of zipping, completing both courses (a total of 10 zips, 5 wobbly bridges, and 9 ropes course elements. The zips are faster and the challenges more intense. It also provides access to a spectacular part of the canyon that not many get an opportunity to explore.
New Canopy Tour Installed in Austin, Texas
S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the completion of a canopy tour in Spicewood, Texas, just west of Austin. Built on the Beihlarz Ranch, the canopy tour consists of six zip lines and three sky bridges and provides guests the opportunity to see Texas Hill Country like never before.
Guides are well trained in local ecology and provide a thorough inquiry into the inhabitants, plants, and fauna of the creek and canyon that the tour follows to the Perdenales River.
After the tour, guests can relax on the beach, swim, or drop into the water from a releasable zip or rope swing. For more information on Canopy Tours, Early Morning Birding Tours, Corporate Team Events, or to book a tour for your family or friends, please contact Cypress Valley at (512) 264-8880.
S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the completion of a canopy tour in Ketchikan, Alaska. The canopy tour, located in Herring Cove, provides tourists and locals the opportunity to experience temperate rain forest from eighty to one hundred thirty five feet in the air. With breathe-taking views and abundant wildlife, the tour has created quite a stir Southeastern, Alaska.
A kilometer in length with eight zip traverses and three sky bridges, the course keeps participants air bound throughout. The final zip lands on a 50-foot tower where participants can choose to descend by stair or rappel. At time of completion it is thought that the course offers the highest arboreal canopy traverse in the United States, keeping participants 80 to 135 feet in the air for more than one kilometer.
Primarily serving the cruise lines, the tour is a once in a life event, with opportunities to experience Alaska wildlife first hand. Common sightings include black bears, salmon, and American Bald Eagles.
S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the completion of a 
S.T.E.P.S. Bonsai Design, LLC is proud to announce the completion of a canopy tour in Ketchikan, Alaska. The canopy tour, located in Herring Cove, provides tourists and locals the opportunity to experience temperate rain forest from eighty to one hundred thirty five feet in the air. With breathe-taking views and abundant wildlife, the tour has created quite a stir Southeastern, Alaska.
Primarily serving the cruise lines, the tour is a once in a life event, with opportunities to experience Alaska wildlife first hand. Common sightings include black bears, salmon, and American Bald Eagles.