About the service
I build rope courses on living trees and on set poles, and I start with the support, not with the platform. Every tree is inspected from the root flare to the crown: species, trunk diameter at attachment height, sounding and drilling for decay and hollows, root anchorage, lean, and the wind load the tree already carries. Where the woodland is thin or the species will not take it, I design and install poles instead: soil bearing tests, footing depth, concrete left to cure properly, and a pull test on every post before a single cable is hung on it. Only then do I draw the route, because the trail has to follow what the supports can genuinely take, never the other way round.
Attachment is gentle and reversible. I work with floating collars and banding with spacers that keep hardware clear of the cambium and let the trunk go on growing, and I re-tension them on a written schedule instead of sinking lag bolts and forgetting about them. Spans and sags are calculated, not eyeballed. For every element I work out the design loads with a safety factor and with the rescue case included, when two people end up on one span; from that come cable diameter, clamp and thimble type, span length and the amount of sag. Sag matters more than people think: too tight and the cable overloads the supports, too slack and a loaded participant drops into the landing zone. Stages are graded from an easy log crossing through swinging steps and nets to the demanding spans, so the course reads as a story and a nervous guest can step off early.
Safety here is continuous, and that is a literal statement. One uninterrupted belay line runs the whole route: the guest clips in at the start and unclips at the finish, and at every post the transfer is made with paired locking carabiners that physically cannot both be open. Landing zones are set out from the fall geometry, cleared and surfaced. At handover I run acceptance testing with static and dynamic loads on every anchor, post and span, using weight bags rather than people, with a protocol for each connection. I open the inspection log, enter the results, and show your team how to keep it: a daily visual check before opening, a detailed monthly one and an annual inspection by an independent expert.
Staff training is part of the job, not an extra line on the invoice. Your instructors walk the route, learn the rescue plan, practise ground and aerial evacuation of a stranded participant on a live person, learn to check harnesses and hardware and to keep the paperwork that lets the park stay open.
What is included:
— tree survey report, or designed and installed poles with pull test protocols
— route layout with load, span and sag calculations
— non-damaging attachment, cable and hardware installation
— graded stages, from warm-up crossings to the demanding spans
— continuous belay line with locking transfer carabiners
— prepared and measured landing zones
— acceptance test protocol and a started inspection log
— two to four days of instructor training and rescue drills
Attachment is gentle and reversible. I work with floating collars and banding with spacers that keep hardware clear of the cambium and let the trunk go on growing, and I re-tension them on a written schedule instead of sinking lag bolts and forgetting about them. Spans and sags are calculated, not eyeballed. For every element I work out the design loads with a safety factor and with the rescue case included, when two people end up on one span; from that come cable diameter, clamp and thimble type, span length and the amount of sag. Sag matters more than people think: too tight and the cable overloads the supports, too slack and a loaded participant drops into the landing zone. Stages are graded from an easy log crossing through swinging steps and nets to the demanding spans, so the course reads as a story and a nervous guest can step off early.
Safety here is continuous, and that is a literal statement. One uninterrupted belay line runs the whole route: the guest clips in at the start and unclips at the finish, and at every post the transfer is made with paired locking carabiners that physically cannot both be open. Landing zones are set out from the fall geometry, cleared and surfaced. At handover I run acceptance testing with static and dynamic loads on every anchor, post and span, using weight bags rather than people, with a protocol for each connection. I open the inspection log, enter the results, and show your team how to keep it: a daily visual check before opening, a detailed monthly one and an annual inspection by an independent expert.
Staff training is part of the job, not an extra line on the invoice. Your instructors walk the route, learn the rescue plan, practise ground and aerial evacuation of a stranded participant on a live person, learn to check harnesses and hardware and to keep the paperwork that lets the park stay open.
What is included:
— tree survey report, or designed and installed poles with pull test protocols
— route layout with load, span and sag calculations
— non-damaging attachment, cable and hardware installation
— graded stages, from warm-up crossings to the demanding spans
— continuous belay line with locking transfer carabiners
— prepared and measured landing zones
— acceptance test protocol and a started inspection log
— two to four days of instructor training and rescue drills
