would be fairly stringent, especially on the periphery of a national park. But ac- cording to Henderson, because the zip line wouldn’t be impacting any salmon spawning streams—a big environmen- tal issue in Alaska—there were few regulatory hurdles to clear.
were not conducive to standard zip line construction methodology. The operating season would be little more than three months long, a sliver of a revenue-producing window that would be particularly small considering that the capacity of the planned tour would be just 10 people at a time. Finding and retaining qualified staff for such a short season in such a remote loca- tion would be daunting. And so on. It wouldn’t be easy; it would be hard. But the Davises, following Kennedy’s lead, chose to do it. They did, however, have some idea of what they were getting into. They already had a track record of running successful tourism businesses in the area, having started with ATV tours in 2007 and later expanding to Jeep tours as well. When a 60-acre plot of land be- came available near the national-park entrance and surrounded by the park on three sides, they saw an opportunity, and they jumped.
The land is what general manager Colin Henderson calls “a mix of tundra and taiga (boreal forest),” and trees in the slow-growth zone of that subarc- tic climate were too small to provide structural support for zip lines and platforms. So, the entire tour—eight zip lines connected by six sky bridges and a ladder—had to be built with poles. Fortunately, most of the subsurface was rocky and stable for reliable anchor- ing, although Henderson says that two poles had to be set on tundral under- pinnings and still require vigilant over- sight to be sure they haven’t shifted. Regulation. One aspect of the project that proved to be not especially hard was getting regulatory approval. One might think that in the pristine Alaskan wilderness, environmental regulations Above right: Solar panels power the support buildings on site. Below: Synergo crews constructing the pole-based course.
Cost. The other good news: start-up costs were relatively modest. >> cont.
BUILDING IN BOREAL FOREST
The first order of business was to con - tract a zip line construction company. The Davises chose Synergo, based in Portland, Ore. The company seemed a good fit for the assignment, touting a building philosophy of creating cours- es that are “challenging, aesthetically pleasing and harmonious with the natural environment.” Construction. With the ground not fully releasing the winter frost until midsum- mer, the onset of construction had to wait until July. Things then moved along at a less-than-speedy pace, with the construction timeframe extending to three months at least in part because of the difficulty in getting building materi - als on site. Big stuff—the poles, cables, construc - tion lumber, etc.—had to be barged in to the coast from afar and then trucked inland on a long drive of several hours. The trip was only complete after a scramble up that riverbed-like access road, with the poles being dragged be- hind an excavator. Even for something small and simple, say, a box of screws, the nearest hardware store was in Fair- banks, a two-hour drive away.
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