New zipline network will add to Bellevue ropes course

Published 10:39 am Saturday, February 11, 2012

Tucked deep in the woods behind the South Bellevue Community Center is an area that in a few years time may be just as popular locally as downtown or the Crossroads Mall.

As early as next spring, Bellevue may be home to King County’s first zipline network. Thrill seekers will not have to drive all the way to Camano Island or Port Townsend to scream through Washington State’s beautiful tree canopy. A short drive to Eastgate Park and the South Bellevue Community Center, followed by a quick but arduous jaunt up a sawdust hill leads to an adventure wonderland.

The planned ziplines will join a surging ropes course that will see more availability to the public this year.

The zipline network will allow participants to zig zag through the canopy at Eastgate Park, bypassing trails and the ropes course, eventually ending where they began, in the parking lot of the South Bellevue Community Center.

Ziplines have long been a dream of park planners, said Brad Bennett, manager of the community center.

“What we’re designing is an aerial adventure,” Bennett said. “You’re high up in the trees traversing from tree to tree and platform to platform.”

Ideas for this urban adventure park have floated around since the mid ‘90s, but when the ropes course opened in 2006, a year after the community center, the possibility of a zipline network increased.

The project is in its infancy stages, Bennett said, and much remains unknown. Officials are looking to hire a design team in April, with construction to be completed in the fall.

Robin Haaseth, spokeswoman for Bellevue’s Parks and Community Services Department, said the project is expected to cost approximately $125,000. Bennett said the community center received a $10,000 grant from Coca-Cola, with the rest coming from the city’s general fund. Not to worry, officials say, the project should pay for itself in the next two to four years.

The new zipline network will join the Bellevue Challenge Course, which was opened up to small groups for the first time last year. Until last May, the course was only available to larger groups, such as corporations looking for team building exercises and school sports teams.

“It didn’t enable individuals to do it because it was cost prohibitive,” Bennett said.

Starting in April, when the course reopens for the summer season, a group of friends can book the course for the day. But be prepared, this is a lot tougher than your local jungle gym.

The course begins with a 40-foot climb up a base log. There, participants have the choice of walking across a cable tight rope or a series of wooden planks connected to a cable by rope. From there, challenges range from traversing a cargo net, to walking diagonal, zig-zag tight ropes where participants have to switch from rope to rope. With names for each of the 18 challenges such as the Charlie Chaplin walk and the Heebie-Jeebie, the course has enough to give even the most steel-nerved climber a jolt.

“You get these kids, these macho type guys, who handle it pretty easy, and then the instructor says ‘OK do it backwards,’ and that all melts away,” Bennett said.

The course will open Saturdays starting in April, adding Sundays in May and Fridays in June. Cost is $39 for Bellevue residents, and $49 for non residents. Sessions last two and a half hours with a maximum of 18 people. Future costs to ride the zipline haven’t been calculated yet, Bennett said.