EBL was founded in 1996 by owner Steve Gustafson. He obtained his degrees in Recreation, Parks and Tourism and Geology from Western Illinois University. As part of his graduate level course work, he participated in a Wilderness Education Association National Standard Program wilderness expedition. Having spent 33 days in the rugged back country of the Wind River Range of Wyoming, 10 days in Sinks Canyon, 10 days in Boulder UT, and 8 days white water kayaking on the Salomon River in Idaho, he successfully completed his course work and became a Certified Outdoor Leader. After dual internships; 3 months with the Rockford, IL Park District and 9 months with George Williams College in Williams Bay WI, he graduated in 1988.
Fueling his passion for adventure education, he went on to work for the State of Oklahoma for a youth at risk program, allowing troubled young adults the opportunity to experience ropes challenge courses, white water canoeing, low ropes "teaming" exercises, back country hiking in the Ozark mountains, and wilderness camping. Moving on to work for a short spell in New Jersey for then, one of the largest ropes challenge course vendors, Cradlerock Outdoor Network, his passion for ropes courses and zip lines began to be more dominate. This allowed him to move in to a Challenge Course Director position for a large YMCA outside of Lafayette, IN called Camp Tecumseh, YMCA.
After leaving the YMCA and his first son of three was born, he moved back to his hometown of Rockford, IL to begin EBL in 1996. Since then, he has traveled the world delivering one of a kind, corporate team building seminars and has credit for interactions with over 75,000 corporate professionals. He is also well traveled for the installation of ropes challenge courses and has delivered services internationally.
In 2002, EBL was approached by a father and son team from Maui Hawaii. Their quest was to develop and install the first canopy / zip line tour in the U.S. After a rigorous review process, EBL was selected to be their vendor on this new venture. Working with the client and adapting technology from ropes challenge courses, tree climbing, safety rigging and cable engineering, EBL installed the first tour for Skyline Eco Adventures in 2002. In 2004, the course won the prestigious award as best adventure tour in Hawaii, an award typically provided to tours ten or more years in operation.
Since 2002, EBL went on to install tours in Kauai Hawaii, the first tour in Alaska in Ketchikan, and the first tour in Juneau Alaska. In 2005, EBL installed its first tour and trained guides from Just Live to operate the tour on our behalf. In 2006 and 2007, EBL installed our largest project to date for the newest U.S. ski resort, Tamarack Ski Resort in Donnelley, Idaho. This tour challenged EBL to create a tour not found anywhere else in the world. With a mix of ground to ground zip lines, tree to tree zip lines, zip line off granite cliffs (Idaho Batholith to be precise) and zips into the high arboreal canopy of Ponderosa Pines of 115 feet off the ground! This is truly a magnificent course to be enjoyed by all who attend. EBL has also consulted with other start up tours for feasibility studies and consultation.
Today, EBL can boost more experience, more tours installed, and more tours owned, than any other company we are aware. Our current project called Scream Time Ziplines by EBL, located in Boone NC has the longest zip lines East of the Mississippi and the first three, side-by-side 2000 foot zip lines in the U.S. This course is sure to get your attention!
As we look forward into the future, we are committed to providing the safest experiences possible for our guests and are working on new technologies to enhance and provide for successful and memorable experience for our guests.
EBL is an Accredited Vendor with the Professional Ropes Course Association (PRCA) and is listed as a Qualified Zip Line / Canopy Tour Professional. We are proud to be the first and only company presently in the United States to have achieved this status. >