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We often get asked: what do we do when our forest doors close for the season? Though our trees may get some R&R, we sure don’t! Get a peek into what life is like for our squad in the shoulder season:

Inspections, Maintenance, and Improving Sites

Safety is our #1 priority. Though we conduct rigorous daily and monthly internal inspections, we also have annual third-party ACCT certified inspectors triple check that we’re giving you the safest experience possible.

We have teams visit every site to adjust our platforms, replace cables, and more to ensure our trees have room to grow. We also take the time to proactively replace any aging elements and add new obstacles! Not to mention mulching. We’re always mulching.

This year, we are currently working to change our belay system at three of our courses to improve guest flow and efficiency and give you the best experience we can.

Creating New Adventures 

We’re growing! We’re currently building a brand-new Treetop Journey course at our Cleveland location, and we’re always talking to new parks where we can bring you a Go Ape Zipline and Adventure Park. 

We value providing experiences so that everyone can live life adventurously – whatever that means for them – so we continue to come up with new activities to bring to our sites too, including outdoor Axe Throwing, the Monkey Drop freefall, Forest EscAPE – an outdoor escape room, and coming soon: Gorilla Golf! Stay tuned for exciting new details on this Go Ape mini golf adventure where you’ll putt-putt through the forest.

Inspecting, Cleaning, and Replacing Gear

Just like our courses, we treat all of our gear with the utmost care. This time of year, you can find our site managers diligently inspecting every piece of equipment on our courses with a keen eye and cleaning even the smallest nooks and crannies (soft bristled toothbrushes in tow). Anything that doesn’t meet our very high standards is quarantined and replaced. Our equipment guy is especially busy through the colder months researching and trialing new gear to roll-out at our courses too! 

Walking our Dogs at Site

Though our courses may be void of people, they aren’t lonely: our furry friends love to explore our sites (though we’d love it if they could pick up a toothbrush and help with the cleaning). Our site teams monitor their course through the winter to ensure things are spick-and-span come rain, sun, snow, and everything between. So, in other words: it’s part of the job to walk their dogs.

Fundraising and Stewardship Campaigns

Though we participate in volunteer activities throughout the year, December and January are great planning months. We conduct research and create relationships with incredible organizations, like GRACE Gorillas and the Arbor Day Foundation, to continue to be socially and environmentally responsible (another one of our Go Ape cornerstones). We’ve organized food drives, blood drives, Toys for Tots campaigns and more, like our current Fun Run/Walk benefiting the Arbor Day Foundation. We also partake in invasive species removals, tree plantings and cagings, trail maintenance activities, water bank restorations, trash clean-ups – you name it, we’ve done it, and are currently planning more for 2022!

Recruiting!

We start hiring for our 2022 season as early as January in some locations and would love to have you join our team too! Check out our job openings on our website. Don’t see your local Go Ape course yet? Check back soon – they’re all coming…