1992
Darren installs the first cable in Monteverde. There is only one, and it runs from a metal platform.
OUR STORY
A history you can still climb into.
The Original Canopy Tour was the first in the world to turn canopy exploration into a guided tour. That is why it is called The Original.
In the forest where the tour has operated since 1993, something from its early years is still part of the experience.
The idea behind the cable.
The zipline was the means. Experiencing the canopy was the idea.
The forest canopy had already been explored, including for research. Darren Hreniuk saw another possibility: a guided tour that would let visitors experience the canopy for themselves. He created that tour here, in Monteverde.
From one cable to eight.
1993
The tour moves to the forest where it still runs today, and grows from one cable to three.
1994
The Original Canopy Tour is formally established.
2001
The route grows to eight ziplines.
The guides who brought the idea to life.
In the early years, the tour picked up visitors in a Unimog, with guides riding through town in full canopy gear. It was an early glimpse of an adventure that would become one of Monteverde's signature experiences.
Adventure was part of the appeal. Safety was a founding principle, and it remains one more than three decades later.
The people who keep the idea alive.
Around 2008, three employees of The Original Canopy Tour took over its operation in Monteverde.
Today, they are the guardians of Darren's original idea: a guided experience of the forest canopy, not simply a ride on a cable.
The tour continues in the same forest, under the same name.
THEN
Visitors climbed through this tree to reach the zipline.
In the early years, visitors climbed inside the hollow ficus to reach a zipline.
The hollow ficus marked an important transition in the development of The Original Canopy Tour: from the first cable departing from a metal platform to using a living tree as part of the canopy experience.
TODAY
You can still climb through the same tree.
Today, you arrive at its platform by zipline. From there, you can choose to rappel down alongside the tree and climb back up through its hollow interior.
The same tree. Part of the experience then. Part of the experience now.
The same hollow ficus used in the early canopy tour is still part of the route today.
The original isn't only a date, a name or a photograph from another time.
It's a forest you can still enter. A tree you can still climb through. And people who still guide you along the way.
Small groups by design. Up to 10 guests, with the same two guides from beginning to end.