Zip it! A new eco-tourism business opens up people to the grandeur of the mountain forest by giving them a true bird's-eye view.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS

In a high cove in some of North Carolina's most rugged terrain, Navitat Canopy Adventures Inc. debunks the notion that treetops are strictly for the birds. "We wanted to create something to cause people to pause and reflect on the beauty of the environment," Managing Partner Ken Stamps says. The company name, in fact, is an amalgam of navigation and habitat. But there's more to the lofty goal than oneness with nature. During Navitat's first eight months, about 16,000 people will pay $85 each to soar through a forest near Barnardsville on zip lines, sometimes at more than 35 mph while 200 feet above the ground.

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Though it's only been open since May, Navitat's roots go deeper--to the 1970s, Costa Rica and scholars squinting into the private lives of birds, lizards and monkeys. "They do their research in rain forests from platforms in trees," Stamps says. "They needed a way to get from tree to tree, so some smart biologists strung cables between them." That gave rise to tours of the rain forest canopy in Costa Rica. In the '90s, eco-tourism companies began adapting the technique in other places.

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In 2008, Stamps, a former Detroit landscape architect, formed a partnership with his nephew John Walker, president of Grand Junction, Colo.-based Bonsai Design Inc., and John's father Sam, an engineer who lives in Asheville. John Walker had been building wilderness ropes courses for others for more than a decade, but he was often frustrated when they veered from well-intended, eco-friendly ventures into mere thrill rides. Stamps was looking to the South after the Detroit economy went sour, and Sam Walker had been handling business and legal affairs for Bonsai.

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They went hunting for an ideal location, one in which thrills would be spiced with environmental education. "We worked with the Henderson and Buncombe county planning departments and looked at about 300 properties," Stamps says. "We did aerial photos and drive-bys before we found the...