Fiona's Secret World: ZipTrek

By Fiona Old

On a detour from shopping tours I went on an ecotour. What this really means is that I
went dangling across Robson Square on the Zip Line, and then read the sustainability
pages on the Ziptrek Ecotours website.

Grab News is devoted to music and the arts. I thought I'd write about the art of letting
go of the fear of heights ... gotta just let go; and the art of sustainability.

I'm told there are 10 Ziptrek lines up at Whistler, and that guests are given a lot of
information about minimizing environmental impact so that the pristine forest is not
harmed. ( The guests would be such as Premier Gordon Campbell and the stars of the
TV show The Bachelor and the rest of us!)

Ziptrek has been designed, from construction to ongoing operations, to minimize
environmental impact. Using local red cedar, decks have been constructed 20 stories
high so that guests don't walk on the ground. Every year Ziptrek plants hundreds of
trees as replacements for those taken. Ziptrek encourages walking and zipping, uses
hybrid vehicles, produces their own power, uses untreated wood, and provides
sustainable jobs.

Ziptrek works collaboratively with Whistler Municipality for Whistler 2020 and a
sustainable future beyond the Olympics. In the early 1980s a Swedish oncologist, Dr.
Karl-Henrik Robèrt, outlined conditions that are essential for life and from that The
Natural Step's Framework for Strategic Development was born. Later physicist Dr. John Holmberg joined in designing this program and the underlying science of The Natural Step is based on the principles of the laws of thermodynamics and natural cycles.

Here is a photo of me clinging to the Zip Line in the Robson Square urban jungle. I was smiling by the end of the line. Really!:)

-Fiona Old
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