Go Ape’s founders on selling up to their employees: ‘It’s not socialism, it’s stakeholder capitalism’
telegraph.co.ukGo Ape – which offers arboreal Swiss Family Robinson-esque activities through combinations of high ropes, zip wires, axe throwing and all-terrain Segways – while on holiday in the Auvergne when their daughter was six months old.
They’d all had a bad night’s sleep, and blurrily read a leaflet for a high ropes venue over croissants. The first thing that struck them when they got to the forest was the sound of laughter. ‘It wasn’t just the kids enjoying themselves; the parents looked like they were on a first date,’ says Rebecca.They set up their adventure company just as the backlash against ’elf and safety gone mad was gathering momentum in the early 2000s.
Visitors wear a harness and are given a safety briefing, but then set off unaccompanied to traverse an aerial assault course comprising wobbly bridges and free-fall Tarzan swings while attached to a continuous belay.
They’re not given helmets as ‘they’re a distraction. They won’t help if you fall eight metres and they make people think they’re bombproof’, says Tristram. ‘The sense of vulnerability is a key safety feature.’Over the past two decades the company has grown to 35 sites in the UK and a further 16 in the US.
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