Zip-line over rainforest canopy 4 January 2005, Costa Rica

A zip-line, zip line, zip-wire, flying fox, or death slide is a

pulley A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a taut cable or belt, or transfer of power between the shaft and cable or belt. In the case of a pulley supported by a frame or shell that ...

suspended on a cable, usually made of

stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...

, mounted on a

slope In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the ''direction'' and the ''steepness'' of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter ''m''; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter ''m'' is use ...

. It is designed to enable

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

or a person propelled by

gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

to travel from the top to the bottom of the inclined cable by holding on to, or being attached to, the freely moving pulley. It has been described as essentially a Tyrolean traverse that engages gravity to assist its speed of movement. Its use is not confined to adventure sport, recreation, or tourism, although modern-day usage tends to favor those meanings.

History

Ropeways or aerial cables have been used as a method of

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...

in some mountainous countries for more than 2,000 years, possibly starting in China, India and Japan as early as 250 BC, remaining in use in some remote areas in China such as Nujiang (Salween) valley in

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

as late as 2015 before being replaced by bridges. Not all of these structures were assisted by gravity, so not all fitted the definition of the zip-line. Various technological advances in Europe in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

improved the power-line's ropeways, some of which were still assisted by gravity. The first recorded use of the zip-line as a form of entertainment was possibly in 1739, when

Robert Cadman Robert Cadman or Robert Kidman (1711–2 February 1739) was an 18th-century steeplejack and ropeslider who between 1732 and 1739 performed feats of daring, ultimately by sliding or flying down a rope from St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury to the Gay ...

, a

steeplejack A steeplejack is a craftsman who scales buildings, chimneys, and church steeples to carry out repairs or maintenance. Steeplejacks erect ladders on church spires, industrial chimneys, cooling towers, bell towers, clock towers, or any other hi ...

and ropeslider, died when descending from Shrewsbury's St Mary's Church when his rope snapped. In literature, one appears in '' The Invisible Man'' (published 1897) by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Whit Monday Whit Monday or Pentecost Monday, also known as Monday of the Holy Spirit, is the holiday celebrated the day after Pentecost, a moveable feast in the Christian liturgical calendar. It is moveable because it is determined by the date of Easter. I ...

fair and referred to as "an inclined strong". Some sources attribute the development of zip-lines used today as a vacation activity to the Tyrolean traverses developed for mountaineering purposes. In the Australian

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...

, zip-lines were sometimes used for delivering necessities to people working in or on the other side of a valley, and they may have been used in conflicts by Australian troops to deliver food, mail and even ammunition to forward positions.

Current uses

Flying foxes across river chasm in Ladakh

As a means of transport

Yungas The Yungas (Aymara ''yunka'' warm or temperate Andes or earth, Quechua ''yunka'' warm area on the slopes of the Andes) is a bioregion of a narrow band of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains from Peru and Bolivia, and extends into ...

, Bolivia, features a system of zip-lines used for transporting harvested crops, mainly coca, across a valley 200 m below. They can also be seen in the

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu and ...

region of India. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the use of aerial ropeways for transporting cargo, partly due to their low energy requirements and environmental impact. Gravity-fed types, i.e. zip-lines, have been built in

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

, Latin America and India. Ziplines have also been used as a means of transporting items in Australian regions in the past. These may include ammunition, weapons, tools, food, and mail.

Recreation

Children's adventure playgrounds

Zip-lines may be designed for

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

ren's play and found on some adventure playgrounds. Inclines are fairly shallow and so the speeds kept relatively low, negating the need for a means of stopping. The term "flying fox" is commonly used in reference to such a small-scale zip-line in Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland. With playground equipment, the pulleys are fixed to the cable, the user typically hanging onto a handgrip underneath, but occasionally including a seat or a safety strap. Return of the grip or seat is usually done by simply pushing or pulling it via a short wire back to the top of the hill on foot.

Canopy tours and adventure zip-lining

Hocking Peaks Adventure Park, Logan, Ohio

Longer and higher rides are often used as a means of accessing remote areas, such as a

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

canopy. In the 1970s, wildlife biologists set up zip-lines as a way to study and explore the dense

rainforests Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...

of Costa Rica without disturbing the environment. The business idea for zip-line

canopy tour A zip-line, zip line, zip-wire, flying fox, or death slide is a pulley suspended on a cable, usually made of stainless steel, mounted on a slope. It is designed to enable cargo or a person propelled by gravity to travel from the top to the bott ...

s developed from these. Darren Hreniuk, a Canadian citizen who moved to Costa Rica in 1992, around the same time that a scene in the film '' Medicine Man'' incorporated the treetop rides, with the goal of using canopy tours to help raise awareness for reforestation, education and socio-economic development in the surrounding areas. In October 1998, the Costa Rican Patent Office granted patent No. 2532 for an "Elevated Forest Transport System Propelled by Gravity, Using Harness and Pulley Through a Simple Horizontal Line" to Hreniuk. The patent was later annulled and brought uncertainty to zip-line businesses, before being reinstated after twenty years. A canopy tour (sometimes called a zip-line tour) provides a route through a wooded, and often mountainous, landscape making primary use of zip-lines and aerial bridges between platforms built in trees. Tourists are harnessed to a cable for safety, and many are restricted to adults. Heights vary from a close to the ground to high up near the treetops. Canopy tours are largely marketed under the banner of ecotourism, although the environmental impact of any type of zip-line is a disputed topic. The terminology varies (canopy tour, zip-lining, flying fox), and the line between using zip-lines for ecotourism and zip-lining as an adventure sport is often not clearly drawn. Zip-line tours are now popular vacation activities, found both at upscale resorts and at outdoor adventure camps, where they may be an element on a larger challenge such as a

hike Hike may refer to: * Hiking, walking lengthy distances in the countryside or wilderness * Hiking (sailing), moving a sailor's body weight as far to windward (upwind) as possible, in order to counteract the force of the wind pushing sideways agains ...

or ropes course.

Operation

Mechanism

Departure zip SuperFly in Whistler, BC, Canada

A type of pulley with a grooved wheel known as a sheave is used in zip-lines, and the pulley turns as it travels along, thus reducing

friction Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction: *Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of t ...

and enabling greater speed than would otherwise be possible. The zip-line trolley is the frame or assembly together with the pulley inside that run along the cable. Zip-lines also have some kind of device to allow the cargo or rider take advantage of the pulley system. This could include a harness, seat, a cabin or often just a handhold in smaller playground applications, that attaches to the pulley by a pivoting link or carabiner which secures the load, allowing the person or cargo to travel down the line.

Braking

To be propelled by gravity, the cable needs to be on a fairly steep slope. Even then the rider or cargo will often not travel completely to the end (although this will depend on the

load Load or LOAD may refer to: Aeronautics and transportation *Load factor (aeronautics), the ratio of the lift of an aircraft to its weight *Passenger load factor, the ratio of revenue passenger miles to available seat miles of a particular transpo ...

), and some means of safely stopping the car at the bottom end is usually needed with the larger zip-lines. Users of zip lines must have means of stopping themselves. Typical mechanisms include: *Friction created between the pulley against the cable. *Thick, purpose-built leather

glove A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves usually have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb. If there is an opening but no (or a short) covering sheath for each finger they are called fingerless gloves. Fingerless glov ...

s. *A mat or

netting In law, set-off or netting are legal techniques applied between persons or businesses with mutual rights and liabilities, replacing gross positions with net positions. It permits the rights to be used to discharge the liabilities where cross cla ...

at the lower end of the incline. *A passive arrester system composed of springs, pulleys,

counterweight A counterweight is a weight that, by applying an opposite force, provides balance and stability of a mechanical system. The purpose of a counterweight is to make lifting the load faster and more efficient, which saves energy and causes less wear ...

s, bungee cord,

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineering), t ...

or other devices, which slows and then stops the trolley's motion. *A "capture block" which is a block on the cable tethered to a rope controlled by a person who can manually apply friction on the rope to slow the user down. *Gravity stop, exploiting the sag in the cable, where the belly of the cable is always lower than the termination point. The amount of incline on a zip-line controls the speed at which the user arrives at the termination point. * Hand brake at the end of the zip-line.

Safety

There are certain precautions that can be taken. Riders are physically attached to the cable by a

harness A harness is a looped restraint or support. Specifically, it may refer to one of the following harness types: * Bondage harness * Child harness * Climbing harness * Dog harness * Pet harness * Five-point harness * Horse harness * Parrot harness * ...

which attaches to a removable trolley. A helmet is required on almost all courses of any size. All zip-line cables have some degree of sag, so the proper tensioning of a cable is important and allows tuning the ride of a zip-line.

Records

Longest

The world's longest zip-line as of 31 January 2018 is the 'Jebel Jais Flight' from one of the peaks of the

Jebel Jais Jebel Jais ( ar, جَبَل جَيْس, Jabal Jays) is a mountain of the Ru'us al-Jibal, North-Western Hajar Mountains, Western Hajar range in the Musandam Governorate of Oman and also in Ras al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. The s ...

mountain in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, with a single unbroken span of . The ride has been closed pending the outcome into an investigation into the crash of an Agusta 139

rescue helicopter Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

on 29 December 2018, killing all on board, thought to have clipped one of the cables. The "Parque de Aventura Barrancas del Cobre" at in Copper Canyon, Mexico, was bumped to second place, with "El Monstruo" at

Orocovis Orocovis (from Taino language, Orocobix popularly thought to mean "''remembrance of the first mountain''") is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Central Mountain Range, north of Villalba and Coamo; south of Morovis and Cor ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

coming in third, at . The Skywire at Bluewater in Kent is the longest in England at . The longest zip-line in Europe, at just over , is the Zip World Bethesda line in

Penrhyn Quarry, Bethesda The Penrhyn quarry is a slate quarry located near Bethesda, North Wales. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the world's largest slate quarry; the main pit is nearly long and deep, and it was worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen. It has ...

, Wales. The Zip World Bethesda line also holds the record for being the fastest Zip-Line in the world.

Steepest

There is no

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

for the world's steepest zip-line, so certainty is difficult to establish, but some contenders have been: *

Saint Martin Saint Martin may refer to: People * Saint Martin of Tours (c. 316–397), Bishop of Tours, France * Saint Martin of Braga (c. 520–580), archbishop of Bracara Augusta in Gallaecia (now Braga in Portugal) * Pope Martin I (598–655) * Saint Mart ...

's Rockland Estate Rainforest Adventures zip-line (opened 24 November 2017), dropping across the of cable. *At

Letalnica bratov Gorišek Letalnica bratov Gorišek ( en, Flying hill of Gorišek brothers) is one of the two largest ski flying hills in the world and the biggest of eight hills located at the Planica Nordic Centre in Planica, Slovenia. It was built in 1969 and is named ...

, on the ski flying hill in Planica, Slovenia (opened 19 September 2015). It is long with a vertical drop. It has an average 38.33% and a maximum 58.6% incline. *ZipFlyer in

(run by HighGround Adventures2012) with a maximum incline of 56% (and still claiming to be the world's tallest zip-line). It had a vertical drop of .

Oldest person to ride a zip-line

*British great-grandfather Jack Reynolds became the oldest person to ride a zip-line on his 106th birthday on 6April 2018 at

Go Ape Go Ape! is an outdoor adventure company which runs tree top ropes courses under the names Tree Top Challenge, Tree Top Adventure and Zip Trekking, as well as ground-based Forest Segway Safaris, at locations across the United Kingdom and the United ...

Grizedale Forest, Cumbria Grizedale Forest is a 24.47 km2 area of woodland in the Lake District of North West England, located to the east of Coniston Water and to the south of Hawkshead. It is made up of a number of hills, small tarn (lake), tarns and the settlement ...

Highest elevation zipline

The La Tyrolienne in Val Thorens, France is the highest altitude zipline at 10,600 feet.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=November 2017