A zip-line, zip line, zip-wire, flying fox, or death slide[ Who Really Benefits from Tourism, Publ. Equations, Karnataka, India, 2010. Working Papers Series. "Canopy Tourism", page 37][Jacques Marais, Lisa De Speville, Adventure Racing, Publisher Human Kinetics, 2004, , 9780736059114, 160 pages, page 156][ Its use is not confined to adventure sport, recreation, or tourism, although modern-day usage tends to favor those meanings.][Based on Google search of the term.]
History
Ropeways or aerial cables have been used as a method of transport in some mountainous countries for more than 2,000 years, possibly starting in China, India and Japan as early as 250 BC,[
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Various technological advances in Europe in the Middle Ages improved the power-line's ropeways, some of which were still assisted by gravity.[
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The first recorded use of the zip-line as a form of entertainment was possibly in 1739, when Robert Cadman, a steeplejack and rope slider, died when descending from Shrewsbury St Mary's Church when his rope snapped. In literature, one appears in H. G. Wells's 1897 novel The Invisible Man as part of a Whit Monday fair: "On the village green an inclined string, down which, clinging the while to a pulley-swung handle, one could be hurled violently against a sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour among the adolescent..."
Some sources attribute the development of zip-lines used today as a vacation activity to the Tyrolean traverses developed for mountaineering purposes.[
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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 Army to deliver food, mail and even ammunition to forward positions.[Although these claims are repeated on several sites, an original reliable source of the information has not been found.]
Current uses
As a means of transport
Yungas, Bolivia, features a system of zip-lines used for transporting harvested crops, mainly coca, across a valley 200 m below.
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the use of Ropeway conveyor 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,[
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Ziplines have also been used as a means of transporting items in Australia regions in the past. These may include ammunition, weapons, tools, food, and mail.
Recreation
Children's adventure playgrounds
Zip-lines may be designed for 's play and found on some adventure playgrounds. Inclines are fairly shallow and so the speeds kept relatively low, removing 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.]
Canopy tours and adventure zip-lining
Longer and higher rides are often used as a means of accessing remote areas, such as a rainforest canopy. In the 1970s, wildlife biologists set up zip-lines as a way to study and explore the dense rainforests of Costa Rica without disturbing the environment. The business idea for zip-line 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, bringing 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 near to the ground to near the treetops.
The terminology varies (canopy tour, zip-lining, flying fox), and the distinction between using zip-lines for ecotourism and zip-lining as an Extreme sports is often not clear.[; also a number of commercial sites such as Adrenaline: Flying fox & tree adventures, Adventure America: Zipline canopy tours]
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 hiking or ropes course.
Operation
Mechanism
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 and enabling greater speed than would otherwise be possible.
The zip-line trolley ("zipliner") is the frame or assembly together with the pulley inside that run along the cable.[Some examples can be seen here.] Zip-lines also have some kind of device to allow the cargo or rider to attach to 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 Structural 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 some means of stopping themselves.[ Typical mechanisms include:]
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Friction created from the pulley rubbing against the cable
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Thick, purpose-built leather
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A mat or netting at the lower end of the incline
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A passive arrester system composed of springs, pulleys, , bungee cord, tire or other devices, which slows and then stops the trolley's motion
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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
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Gravity stop, exploiting the sag in the cable, where the belly of the cable is always lower than the termination point. The amount of net incline in a zip-line system affects the speed at which the user arrives at the termination point.
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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 safety 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, which opened on 28 September 2024, is the K3 of the SA Forest Adventures in Caledon, South Africa. It is a single cable of reaching speeds up to .
The previous record holder was the "Jebel Jais Flight", which was sited on one of the peaks of the Jebel Jais mountain in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, with a single unbroken span of .
The "Parque de Aventura Barrancas del Cobre" at in Copper Canyon, Mexico, is the second-longest span,[, http://parktropa.com/our-works-en/zipline/] with "El Monstruo" at Orocovis in Puerto Rico coming in third, at .
The Skywire at Bluewater in Kent is the longest in England at .
The Zip World Bethesda line in Penrhyn Quarry, Bethesda, Wales holds the world record for attaining the fastest zip-line travel speed.
Steepest
Zip-lines with the steepest inclines include:
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Saint Martin's Rockland Estate Rainforest Adventures zip-line (opened 24 November 2017) drops across the of cable.
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The Letalnica bratov GoriĊĦek zip-line, on the ski jumping hill in Planica, Slovenia (opened 19 September 2015) is long with a vertical drop. It has an average 38.33% and a maximum 58.6% incline.
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ZipFlyer in Nepal (run by HighGround Adventures2012), with a maximum incline of 56%, claims to be the world's steepest zip-line. It has a vertical drop of .
Oldest person to ride a zip-line
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On his 106th birthday, British great-grandfather Jack Reynolds became the oldest person to ride a zip-line, on 6April 2018, at Go Ape in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria.
Highest elevation zipline
The La Tyrolienne in Val Thorens, France is the highest altitude zipline, at 10,600 feet.
See also
