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 suspended on a

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

, usually made of stainless steel, 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 A Tyrolean traverse is a method of crossing through free space between two high points on a rope without a hanging cart or cart equivalent. This is used in a range of mountaineering activities: rock climbing, technical tree climbing, caving, w ...

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, pipelin ...

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 province in 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 Kunming. The province borders the C ...

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 ...

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 ''The Invisible Man'' is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in '' Pearson's Weekly'' in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devo ...

'' (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, 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 int ...

, Bolivia, features a system of zip-lines used for transporting harvested crops, mainly

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, ...

, 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 ...

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, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

, Latin America and India. Ziplines have also been used as a means of transporting items in

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

regions in the past. These may include ammunition, weapons, tools, food, and mail.

Recreation

Children's adventure playgrounds

Zip-lines may be designed for children's

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

and found on some

adventure playground An adventure playground is a specific type of playground for children. Adventure playgrounds can take many forms, ranging from "natural playgrounds" to "junk playgrounds", and are typically defined by an ethos of unrestricted play, the presence ...

s. 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

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...

. 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 bo ...

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 A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and cerem ...

'' 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 Action sports, adventure sports or extreme sports are activities perceived as involving a high degree of risk. These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and highly specialized gear. Extreme tourism overl ...

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 or

ropes course A ropes course is a challenging outdoor personal development and team building activity which usually consists of high and/or low elements. Low elements take place on the ground or above the ground. High elements are usually constructed in tr ...

Operation

Mechanism

Departure zip SuperFly in Whistler, BC, Canada

A type of pulley with a grooved wheel known as a

sheave A sheave () or pulley wheel is a grooved wheel often used for holding a belt, wire rope, or rope and incorporated into a pulley A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a ...

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 ...

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 A carabiner or karabiner () is a specialized type of shackle, a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate used to quickly and reversibly connect components, most notably in safety-critical systems. The word is a shortened form of ''Karabinerhaken'' ...

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), 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 gloves. *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 wea ...

bungee cord Bungee cords equipped with metal hooks A bungee cord (sometimes spelled bungle; also known as a shock cord) is an elastic cord composed of one or more elastic strands forming a core, usually covered in a woven cotton or polypropylene sheath. The ...

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which 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 In road vehicles, the parking brake, also known as a handbrake or emergency brake (e-brake), is a mechanism used to keep the vehicle securely motionless when parked. Parking brakes often consist of a cable connected to two wheel brakes, which i ...

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 which attaches to a removable trolley. A

helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protect ...

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 North- Western Hajar range in the Musandam Governorate of Oman and also in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. The summit has an elevation of . The summit is located on the ...

mountain in

Ras Al Khaimah Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) ( ar, رَأْس ٱلْخَيْمَة, historically Julfar) is the largest city and capital of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. It is the sixth-largest city in UAE after Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain ...

, 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 Copper Canyon (Spanish: Barrancas del Cobre) is a group of six distinct canyons in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the southwestern part of the state of Chihuahua in northwestern Mexico that is in size. The canyons were formed by six rivers tha ...

, Mexico, was bumped to second place, with "El Monstruo" at Orocovis in

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, 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 for the world's steepest zip-line, so certainty is difficult to establish, but some contenders have been: * Saint Martin'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 Planica () is an Alpine valley in northwestern Slovenia, extending south from the border village of Rateče, not far from another well-known ski resort, Kranjska Gora. Further south, the valley extends into the Tamar Valley, a popular hiking ...

, 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 ...

in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria.

Highest elevation zipline

The La Tyrolienne in

Val Thorens Val Thorens (), is a ski town located in the Tarentaise Valley, Savoie, French Alps at an altitude of . It is located in the commune of Saint-Martin-de-Belleville in the Savoie department. The resort forms part of the Les Trois Vallées ski ar ...

, France is the highest altitude zipline at 10,600 feet.

References

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