The Tree Top Walk

In September 2019, I had the chance to visit Krkonose National Park in the Czech Republic (all media on this page is my own from the visit). Whilst the park itself was stunning with plenty of hiking trails, one of the sights to see (and climb) was the Tree Top Walk. This structure is a 45 metre tall circular walkway that ascends well above the tree line for great views of the surrounding forests; so high in fact that at the top you can feel the slight sway of the platform. With some walking before and after, the overall path is around 1.5km.

The structure is predominantly glue-laminated timber (glulam) with some steel work. The pathway up is all wood and the majority of the railing too. Any hints of steel are hidden by the overwhelmingly warm timber feel.

Aside from the beauty of the structure and of course the view, one other reason I particularly enjoyed this visit was the customer engagement on biodiversity. As you work your way along the trail, bright green plaques are placed along the way with various comparisons of a naturally biodiverse forest, and a monoculture forest which is only used for farming. This was a nice juxtaposition, particularly as the majority of the timber used on this project likely came from a monoculture, yet surrounding the structure were trees that were as old as 150 years. These comparisons were thinly veiled in their support for diverse/natural forests, even by labelling natural forests as “Pretty” and farmed forests as “Ugly”.

However, what they did do successfully was highlight some genuine benefits in an engaging manner for all audiences. They covered the benefits of protecting the forest, longevity, cycles of decomposition, monetary value and more. At the time, I remembered to snap a few of them as it was the first time I had seen a tourist site not only broach this issue, but do it in a very simple way.

After reading up about it online after the trip, it appeared that there are a number of these walk ways dotted around Europe. Whilst I can’t speak for all of the Tree Top Walks, the one at Krkonose was a great visit. All images here are my own from the visit.