Over 16 years of operations, we worked with more than 25 different manufacturers and suppliers for our products. Eventually, we decided to vertically integrate and build our own machine shop. This time-intensive process required many resources and careful coordination to make our founder’s dream a reality. Environmental sustainability has been a driving force at Skyline since the beginning. Our founder has always aimed to create a one-stop shop for all things zipline. This included taking full control of hard goods manufacturing in an environmentally conscious way. High rental costs and the lack of properly equipped space in the Whistler and Pemberton region of British Columbia made the idea a reality. To address this, we built a 4,500 sq. ft. facility above the Pemberton Valley with a stunning view of Mount Currie.

A Fully Equipped, Sustainable Facility

Within our new fully passive constructed facility we built; an office, employee suite, and a full service machine shop equipped with welding and fabrication equipment. We are proud that the building generates over 8,000 watts of solar power. It also collects water and features an extremely efficient building envelope.

Office Space and Staff Areas

On one side, we have our office. It includes the founder’s office, two work desks, and a dining table for all Skyline staff. Below the office, we built a suite with two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. The suite also has a full kitchen and living room.

Garage Floors and Pass-Through Design

On the other side of our Office and suite we have 2 garage floors with a large pass through on the top floor. We designed this large pass-through for loading and unloading raw materials and unfinished goods to the lower shop. We built it to precise specifications so both machines can fit through the opening. When lowering the DT1 to the lower level, we had only about two inches of tolerance on each side. This left very little room for error.

Fully Equipped Machine Shop

On the bottom floor we have a fully equipped machine shop which includes a band saw, air compressor, Haas DT1 CNC Machine and a Haas TL1 Tool Lathe which will allow us to fabricate roughly 80% of our hard goods.

Assembly and Distribution

Above the machine shop on the main floor, we installed a commercial-grade welding machine, compressed air, and an assembly station. Here, we assemble all finished goods. Once completed, we send them to our Whistler office and warehouse. There, the products are stored and prepared for distribution to our clients.

Within our CNC machine shop we knew that the machines would only be as good as their programmer and because of this we looked high and low for the right fit. After several weeks of discussions with several other programmers and students just out of University, we found Steve! With over 16 years of experience with machining and having worked for world-renowned companies like Rolls-Royce; we knew Steve would be able to set a precedent and bring our shop to a world-class level.

In the coming months you can expect to see a lot more content regarding the shop and our manufacturing processes.