From Family Ranch to Eco-Tourism

In 1998, after successful business careers, the Beilharz's moved from an upscale West Austin neighborhood to a beautiful, undeveloped plot in the Texas Hill Country. With nothing but a travel trailer and a portable generator, they decided to live close to nature, spend more time with their four children, and see what they could build on their own from scratch.

After buying this land west of Austin, we looked at many ways to share its beauty with others. But doing so on any large scale would have meant making trails, removing fallen trees and branches, and cutting down some vegetation. This would have disturbed the existing habitat of the ravine, and the trail traffic would have been trampled the complex bio-diverse life on the ravine floor, further disturbing the existing inhabitants. When David experienced a canopy tour in Costa Rica, he knew he had found the answer to sharing the beauty of Cypress Valley with minimal impact on the environment and a whole new angle of enjoying nature–from a bird’s eye view.

In 2004, we began searching for a way to supplement our farm and ranch activities with a business which would be exciting and honor our values of conservation and family. We were looking for something fun for our children and fun for our customers. Our personal interest in family outings, increasing environmental awareness, and encouraging people to spend more time in nature has prompted us to start a business which educates and inspires people to be more ecologically conscious while also providing a thrilling physical experience. Our hope is to provide an enlivening adventure while instilling knowledge and a desire to protect our natural resources.

Cypress Valley became the first zipline canopy tour in the Continental United States in 2005 and started an industry of adventure parks across the nation. Busy raising a family, David and Amy helped countless other businesses get started rather than expand from their home in Austin. Couples, families, and work teams flocked to Cypress Valley and told their friends about us. We have been blessed by happy customers who bring others to enjoy our adventures year after year.

A year after flying guests through this special cypress-lined creek ravine, David and Amy introduced their first treehouse in 2006 and quickly made it to the cover of the New York Times travel section. People loved sleeping in the trees even more than their two-hour zipline tour. Soon people were proposing on platforms, having honeymoons and anniversaries in the treehouse and Cypress Valley became a place of romance, not just adventure and fun. With the family grown and the ranch no longer their full-time home, in 2019 Cypress Valley opened up the Ranch House and new Event Center for fairy-tale weddings high in the cypress trees.

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