Kerfoot Canopy Tour — Attraction in Minnesota

This was my first shot at ziplining and it turned out to be a perfect first experience, which a mid-70's degree day and Minnesota showing all her blazing Fall colors. It would be tough to beat the scenery that we got to experience today. From the time we were fitted with our harnesses and helmets until my feet hit the ground after the final ride, it was a total of 3 hours. Our group ended up being 11 people plus our two guides, Trevor and Jesse. Both men were very friendly and kept up the conversations throughout the tour. They answered all questions and added both their own perspectives on the various rides as well as a narrative on the Minnesota River land that Kerfoot is on. Very interesting to hear. We started with gearing up and then a short trip by ATV up to the first two rides, which made up our Ground School training. Very thorough, informative, and helpful. It made the handbraking technique very easy to understand as well as a chance to practice it. Safety is definitely front and center throughout the entire experience, and as someone with terrible fear of heights and some other anxieties, I felt completely at ease throughout the entire day, even though that sense of adventure and the adrenaline rush was certainly real. I paid the extra $30 to rent a GoPro from them to wear on my helmet and about halfway through the battery glitched a bit. They radioed down to the office to have them drive up with another battery so I could still get footage of all my rides. One other thing that was really nice was that our group had people aged probably from late elementary school/junior high school up through a retired couple, yet the guides seemed at ease with everyone and made it easy for all of us to interact and find some common grounds as a group. All in all, today was a fantastic time and I would recommend Kerfoot to anyone. ...

Zip-lining had been a bucket list item for me, but one which I'd avoided forever because of an intense fear of heights. While appearing moderately understaffed during our visit, this requested only to a small delay in getting checked in. After completing that process, we waited as the rest of our time slot participants arrived and observed another tour returning, all of whom seemed exhausted, but happy.

After a quick run-through of obvious safety rules, we were individually fitted and strapped into our harnesses before boarding ATVs for a short drive to the start of the course. We were given elementary instruction on signals from our guides and how to control our speed, then given a quick quiz to ensure we'd absorbed what we'd been taught. My anxious mind conflated a couple of the signals in the quiz, but this knowledge was quickly used in a practical sense as we journeyed through our first two practice zips.

Our guides had tolerant and helpful bedside manner and hopefully I never showed the terror that I was feeling. Their calm demeanor throughout the adventure made it much easier to engage in things well outside of what I thought my comfort zone was, though we were assured nobody would have to proceed on any part of the tour they were uncomfortable with. Indeed, about halfway through we lost two participants.

The most personally challenging part of the course for me was the suspension bridge. While not all that high, feeling the wobble underfoot was unnerving, though I'm glad I was able to complete it.

When I did manage to look around, the scenery was absolutely gorgeous and we were fortunate enough to visit just as a small number of trees began to show their autumn colors.

I would absolutely recommend this as a mild to medium thrill and bonding outing with friends or...

TLDR: the training was not honest enough, the staff were great, the view was beautiful, and the lines were fun, half our team quit part way through because of breaking.

They need to give you a more honest view of how difficult it is to break at the end of the line. I’ve ziplined twice prior and never had to break myself; the other places awkward stopped us appropriately. Kerfoot has an abrupt emergency stop if you can‘t Stop yourself obviously, but that endangers you and the staff at those high speeds. A leather hand strap isn’t safe enough to stop when you’re on a 1200 foot long or 175ft high line. The staff was great about making sure everyone felt safe to continue but in my experience, I’ve never been asked 20+ times if I wanted to leave. After the first two lines, two of our group left because they couldnt break themselves. After 9 lines they sit you down and tell you (very kindly) to get off and leave If you can’t break very well. I chose to get off because after hiking, climbing, and zip lining, you’re too tired to break yourself. The extent of how unsafe this was didn’t occur to me until my dad mentioned it. Leather is the wrong material for any type of breaking especially breaking as intense and essential as zip lining is. That said, I enjoyed the view and the guides made sure we knew where to look. The lines were variant in length, skill, and height which was awesome. I wish they had a more safe method of breaking and am disappointed that I drove 4 hours to come here. The other reviews mentioned nothing about the difficulty and I wish I had some type of...