Safety & Engineering at Soaring^® Tree Top Adventures

Safety & Engineering

Soaring Canopy Tours’^® first priority is to guest safety. Soaring^® has built redundancies into every aspect of its zipline course, and every detail has been planned out to ensure that your day is completely safe and worry free. Cables and connectors have been through rigorous engineering stress tests, and only top-of-the-line Petzl climbing equipment is used. The course and equipment is thoroughly inspected on a regular basis. Guests are attached to the Soaring^® cables and/or a safety cable or line the entire time they are in the trees and do not get unattached from these lines until they return to the ground.

Harnesses:

The Petzl Company, world-famous maker of the finest climbing and rescue gear, specifically designed the harnesses, Trac pulleys, hardware, carabineers, clamps, and straps that will be used by guests, Sky Rangers and Safety Officers of Soaring^® Tree Top Adventures.

Structure:

All structures and platforms for Soaring^® Tree Top Adventures were fabricated at Holt Sheet Metal Inc. Every component is high-strength stainless steel, down to every last bolt and decorative trim. HSMI is a second generation family business in Durango, Colorado, which has built an international reputation for quality and innovation since it opened in 1965.

Trees:

There are no intrusions or stresses of any kind to any of the trees to support the platforms. Each platform is suspended from patented “tree hugging” padded collars which allow the trunk to sway in the wind and permit the tree to expand as it grows. David B. Temple, president of Animas Valley Arborist, “These old girls won’t even know you’re here.”

Soaring^® Canopy Tour Patents

Soaring^® Tree Top Adventures has a patent to a unique formula that allows guests to leave one platform and arrive to the next without having to slow down manually. With this patented formula, guests arrive at a comfortable pace to the next tree to step right up onto the platform. Guests do not need gloves and do not need to brake on the zip lines.

Soaring^® Tree Top Adventures has a second patent on the tree-hugging suspension of its platforms in the trees. The entire course is built without any hooks, bolts, screws, or anything else penetrating the trees. There is nothing that even penetrates the bark of the old growth Ponderosa pines. It is a unique patent that allows the platforms to be suspended in the trees without any harm to the trees at all. Sap flow and growth will never be impeded by Soaring’s^® eco-friendly system.

Arborist Feedback

Soaring^® should be commended for the creative and non-invasive approach to providing a recreational opportunity for the public to experience an eagle’s eye view of some of the best arboricultural treasures Mother Nature has to offer. I am particularly excited when people are encouraged to involve themselves with and appreciate trees. I am very impressed with the ecologically minded attention you have given to the project. Nothing that Soaring is doing is impacting the health of the trees.

–David B Temple, President, Animas Valley Arborist, Inc.,
member, National Arborist Association and International Society of Arboriculture