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I felt like a hawk catching a gentle breeze as I flew about 400 feet over the oak woodlands and ranchland below me.
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I was harnessed into the first of three zip lines available at Highline Adventures near Buellton, an expansive adventure park where Californians of every age can find something fun to do — including zooming down the fastest zip line in the state.
Highline Adventures, which opened in 2023, is less than a 10-minute drive from Solvang, situated right behind OstrichLand USA, meaning you can spend your morning scarfing down danishes, go feed dinosaur-like birds and then scoot over to Highline for an afternoon of adventure.
I spoke to owner and operator Jeff Hartman about his adventure park, which makes up about 200 acres of his family’s 1,200-acre ranch (which you can learn about on your trip). Here’s what to know before you visit.
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1. Highline has the biggest* and fastest zip lines in California
On your zip line tour, you will travel down three lines, starting with a 3,360-foot-long journey — about 7.5 times the length of the Hollywood Sign — where you gently zoom 400 feet above lush oak woodlands.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
“Zip line No. 1 is the longest single span that I know of in California,” Hartman said, adding there’s a private zip line in the Central Coast that’s longer but isn’t open to the public, hence the asterisk.
The second line is 1,600 feet and offers a faster ride, but not the fastest.
That comes third when you rocket 2,650 feet down a zip line built at a 26-degree angle, “which is the steepest the engineers can build a zip line with the technology that we have,” Hartman said. “That one, I can get you going 55 or 60 miles an hour.”
Or faster. Your speed will depend on your weight and weather conditions. Riders must be between 75 and 275 pounds. The larger the guest, the faster they will likely go.
The zip lines take you 400 feet over oak woodlands.
(Highline Adventures)
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2. Your adventure begins before the zip lines — with an epic drive up the mountain and optional hike
To reach the first zip line, the Highline staff will take you in 4×4 open-air Humvees on a steep path where you’ll gain 1,000 feet of elevation. I found it thrilling (and kind of wanted to drive)! You might spot wildlife as you head up, including bobcat, deer, owls, foxes and if lucky, a mountain lion, Hartman said.
Guests can choose the “hike and fly” tour where they can take either a 2-mile fire road or a 2.25-mile trail up through the hillside. Either way, you will end up at a lookout spot above zip line No. 1 where you can, on a clear day, see the ocean.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
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3. Don’t feel like zip-lining? Try the ropes or aerial net course
Highline’s Adventure Park features a ropes course with 80 elements on two separate levels. Guests can choose four routes, ranging in difficulty from easy to “very hard,” per the website. Ropes course guests must be at least 4 feet tall, able to reach 70 inches straight up with your arm fully extended overhead, and weigh less than 275 pounds.
(Highline Adventures)
But fear not, wee children! (I’m going to pretend a 3-year-old might read this.) Last spring, the Highline staff built Skynet Playground, an aerial netted adventure park featuring 10 netted zones. (Hartman has three children, ages 6, 3 and newborn, and wanted to build something his kids could enjoy too.) The sturdy, bouncy netting used in the aerial park is the same used in the commercial fishing industry.
“What’s really cool about the Skynet Playground and these aerial net parks is that, one, you don’t have to get into a harness, so that saves a lot of time and energy... and (two), we can get kids as young as 2 years old in there with their parents holding their hands,” Hartman said.
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4. You can zip line at night too
Highline offers full moon zip line opportunities monthly, except for January and February when it’s too chilly. Workers will give you a headlamp and glow sticks as you zip above a moonlit ranch. Additionally, in October, Highline hosts “fright flights” where guests can also zip line at night.
For all of the adventures, the Highline crew regularly checks the safety of their equipment. Hartman said his team performs daily, weekly and monthly inspections along with having a third-party manufacturer provide an annual inspection of the zip line equipment.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
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5. On the farm, you can take home one of the oldest flowering plants in the world
Hartman was previously (legally) growing cannabis on the ranch. However, when the market became oversaturated, it was no longer profitable to be a small-scale cannabis grower in the Santa Ynez Valley, he said.
Hartman loves growing crops, and his mother mentioned protea, an ancient type of flowering plant found in South Africa and Australia. Protea are drought-tolerant and do well in California’s Mediterranean climate, he said. In the summer, the staff only has to provide a gallon of water to the plants.
Says Colin McNany of MarBeso Wine: “Buellton is the bellybutton of California. It’s centrally located, slightly awkward and highly necessary.”
Hartman said his family took a “massive gamble” and picked out 16 of the best cultivars that they thought would grow well, planting them in 2020. They’ve found the South African varieties, like the Safari Sunset and Goldstrike, do the best.
“These protea plants go back in the fossil record like 300 million years,” Hartman said. “They’re some of the oldest flowers on the planet.”
Hartman said he plans to open a nursery, hopefully later this year, so people can buy potted protea and plant them around their homes, given how drought-tolerant they are.
The tour through the ranch’s 8 acres of proteas includes a U-pick option where guests can take cut flowers home.
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6. And you can learn how to drive a 4x4 Bronco
Highline Adventures offers 2.5-hour Bronco tours where guests can either drive or ride along as a guide takes them through 1,200 acres of diverse terrain. There are two 12-mile routes that guests can choose from.
Hartman said he thought he’d get die-hard off-roaders.
“What we’re getting is people who’ve never off-roaded before, and it’s a really nice intro course for people to go get a safe, fun experience and have a guide with you without having to buy the super expensive 4x4 vehicle and then just be out in the woods by yourself,” Hartman said.
Guests will gain 1,400 feet in elevation as the Bronco climbs hillsides, including lookout spots where you can see the ocean and Santa Ynez Valley. It’s “a rugged piece of California, but you’re still a five-minute drive into a danish and glass of wine in Solvang,” Hartman said.
